Investigations
A CTA Bus Driver Was Attacked on the Job. She Was Later Fired While on Leave
Paige McCulloch-Burton was attacked while working as a CTA bus driver. (Dan Lambert / WTTW News)
Paige McCulloch-Burton had long been interested in driving a bus.
Her grandfather worked as a CTA bus operator, and after earning her commercial driver’s license, she followed in his footsteps in February 2025.
“It was a very great experience,” she recalled. “I really enjoyed a lot of my customers, being able to interact with the public on a daily basis, being responsible (for) getting Chicago to and from where they need to go. I took a lot of pride in that job.”
But that great experience was short-lived. After just a few months on the job, McCulloch-Burton was physically attacked by a man who boarded the bus she was operating.
CTA failures to maintain the onboard security system meant that police were unable to fully investigate the assault, records show. And McCulloch-Burton said the transit agency subsequently pushed her out of a job she loves after failing to properly accommodate and care for her post-attack. Now, she’s speaking out in hopes it will improve conditions for other operators.
“I hope to see a change,” she said. “I hope to see CTA treat their employees more like family, because every day we get up and we put our lives on the line.”
CTA did not respond to detailed requests for comment about the incident or their response to it.
A Sudden Attack
On May 24, 2025, McCulloch-Burton was driving a bus on CTA’s #82 route, heading south on Homan Avenue. As she approached the stop at Jackson Boulevard, she saw a man in a ski mask waiting to board the bus who gave her pause.
“This passenger looked maybe like they could be trouble, but due to CTA policy we cannot take it upon ourselves to pass up customers,” she said.
When the man boarded the bus, McCulloch-Burton said, he mumbled something to her that she couldn’t understand. When she asked the passenger to repeat himself, that’s when the assault began.
In an interview with WTTW News and in documentation filed with the CTA, McCulloch-Burton recalled “punch after punch after punch” that struck her in the face, neck, ribs and stomach.
“I could hear the customers screaming in the background,” she said. “It was a very traumatic moment. It felt like it lasted forever. I was trying my best to stay professional … and secure the bus and make sure my passengers were OK.”
Eventually, the man fled. McCulloch-Burton managed to secure the bus with trembling hands and notify CTA control.
“I was really scared,” she recalled. “The passengers were screaming, ‘Oh, he might come back with a gun.’ I just felt like I was still in danger.”
A passenger managed to flag down passing Chicago Police Department officers: “I thank the Lord they did stop and begin their investigation,” McCulloch-Burton said.
But their investigation would quickly hit a dead end. After recounting the attack to a CTA supervisor and a Chicago police officer who arrived at the scene, McCulloch-Burton was taken by ambulance to Mount Sinai Hospital for treatment and the bus she was driving was returned to an agency garage.
At the hospital, McCulloch-Burton also spoke with a Chicago police detective about what happened. But when the detective tried to obtain the surveillance camera footage, CTA security services told him the hard drive was “defective,” according to emails provided to WTTW News.
“There was no video for the date and time of the incident,” the detective was told, prompting him to close the investigation into the assault, according to the emails.
“I was very, very shocked to hear that,” McCulloch-Burton said. “We have to do a pre-trip (check) of these buses, and CTA should be doing their portion. … They’re not following their own policies and procedures, and skipping those steps are putting their employees, customers and everyone else in danger.”
CTA did not respond to a question about why the defective surveillance system was not flagged.
Fight for Accommodations
Despite the seriousness of the attack, McCulloch-Burton said it took about a month to begin receiving workman’s comp payments from the transit agency. She says the injuries she suffered during the attack have left her in chronic pain and suffering from PTSD.
“I was put behind on bills and things that I needed to take care of,” she said. “I do have children at home, so missing those payments and having to wait, it really did put a damper on my household.”
McCulloch-Burton said that in addition to slow-walking her checks while she was on medical leave, the company that manages care for injured CTA workers tried to pressure her into treatments she didn’t want. And she’s upset that she filed a reasonable accommodation request with the agency in December 2025 that, emails show, didn’t get a response until June 2026.
Her request was denied — on the grounds that she was no longer an employee of the CTA, a termination McCulloch-Burton said she learned about when a COBRA packet arrived in the mail in March of this year.
When she called to confirm she’d been fired, McCulloch-Burton said, she was told a letter had been sent to her in the mail. But she said she gets an email from USPS alerting her to which letters and packages she’ll receive each day, and never saw anything from CTA.
“When I spoke up about it and tried to get some answers, they didn’t give me any,” she said. “I have no demerits … on my record. I’ve never been late to work or anything of that nature.”
A CTA bus is pictured on Oct. 17, 2025. (Marvin Samuel Tolentino Pineda / iStock)
McCulloch-Burton contacted the union that represents CTA bus operators and filed a grievance, but so far nothing’s come of it. She’s concerned that being outspoken and persistent in asking questions about how CTA maintains its onboard cameras, how it communicates with its operators, and how it treats employees who have been injured or need accommodations made her a target for termination.
“Unfortunately, sometimes when you speak up … you kind of get the shorter end of the stick,” she said. “I’m OK with getting the shorter end of the stick as long as the truth is being told. (The agency) tries to put on this facade that the CTA is safe and that they’re doing everything in their powers to keep us safe, and that’s just not the facts.”
Worker Safety
On that point, some workers and union leaders agree. Earlier this year, a crowd of bus operators and mechanics protested a revamped agency security plan outside CTA headquarters during a board of directors meeting.
A CTA janitor was killed in a fatal stabbing attack on Oct. 8 while working at the Damen Green Line station. Union leaders say Julian Mobley was stabbed after a man was involved in a confrontation with other CTA employees.
Local 241 President Keith Hill told WTTW News that employee safety concerns aren’t adequately taken into account, calling CTA’s revamped safety efforts “an insult to the riders and us as workers. … We take pride in moving this city. We should be protected. The passengers should be protected.”
Nora Leerhsen, CTA’s acting president, has frequently mentioned the safety of employees as among the agency’s top priorities. At the same board meeting Hill and unionized employees protested, she called protecting workers an “incredibly important” issue. The agency has touted a decrease in crime across the system, as well as the rollout of new Chicago Police Department and Cook County Sheriff’s Police missions on buses and trains and at stations and stops.
But McCulloch-Burton still thinks the agency could do more, citing other recent violent attacks on the system that have drawn widespread attention. And she said another operator on the same route she was driving had been assaulted earlier in the day, and the agency did nothing to warn staff.
CTA did not respond to a specific request for comment regarding that accusation.
“I just want them to do the right thing: stand by their employees, stand by their customers,” she said. “There will be no CTA without their ridership and without the customers and without the community.”
WTTW News investigative coverage is supported in part by The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
Contact Nick Blumberg: [email protected] | (773) 509-5434 | @ndblumberg
