A chilling video captures the moment when 59-year-old Aaron Cole repeatedly stabbed 30-year-old Dominique Lucas aboard a Las Vegas RTC bus on February 26.
Despite Lucas’s desperate pleas for help, the bus driver continued along the route while the gruesome attack unfolded.
According to 8 News Now, the incident began when an argument broke out between Cole and Lucas on the bus. In the video, Lucas can be heard telling Cole he wasn’t bothering him. Shortly after, Cole pulled out a knife and began stabbing Lucas, who rushed to the front of the bus in an attempt to escape.
Lucas struggled to open the bus exit, but the driver kept moving. As Cole continued the attack, the bus doors briefly opened and closed. The violent encounter lasted approximately four minutes, during which Lucas repeatedly begged for help.
Eventually, the bus driver activated a panic button to call for assistance and asked Lucas if he wanted to exit the bus. Cole resumed stabbing Lucas, who later crawled out of the bus and succumbed to his injuries.
Police arrived at the scene at 4:58 p.m., about eight minutes after the attack commenced. In grand jury transcripts, the bus driver justified his decision to keep the doors closed for the safety of the victim and passengers.
A spokesperson for Keolis, the company that operates the bus for RTC, confirmed this policy, stating that the doors needed to remain shut to prevent the risk of passengers or the victim running into traffic.
This was not Cole’s first violent encounter. Ten days before the stabbing, he was arrested for assault with the use of a deadly weapon and carrying a concealed weapon after reportedly threatening another person on a bus with a knife.
He also had a violent criminal past, previously serving over two decades in prison for shooting a man in a store.