CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- There’s new video of an incident involving two CTA bus drivers and a passenger that resulted in the firing of the two CTA employees, and it appears to tell a different story.
Many have seen a widely-circulated cellphone video showing a man being body-slammed to the pavement by a CTA bus driver. Earlier this month, the man - Lawrence Madden, 43 - shared his story.
He said he was on a CTA bus headed south on Western Avenue around 2 a.m. on June 11 and he was just trying to get home to see his father. The driver, he said, stopped the bus near 77th Street to talk to another bus driver.
Madden said they were talking for about 10 minutes, when he told the driver he was being unprofessional and that set him off.
"He literally got upset, because I was telling him that he was unprofessional. And I am just trying to get to the house, and he said 'you will get to the house when I get you there,'" Madden said.
Madden said he got out of the back of the bus, as the driver was coming after him.
"He tried to snatch me from the bus, he hit me and kicked me three times. I am getting up trying to protect myself, defend myself, and the bus driver who he was talking to came up from behind me slammed me on my back," he said.
"I am going through pain. I can't sleep. I've got headaches, depression, paranoia," he said.
Madden told the two CTA bus drivers attacked him, but the Sun-Times obtained CTA video showing Madden throwing the first punch, and then essentially getting pummeled and body slammed.
“Yes, that’s what happened. I defended myself,” Leonard Andrews Jr. told the Sun-Times on Tuesday.
The CTA fired Andrews and Milan Williams, the man seen on the video body-slamming Madden.
Andrews, 28, was charged with misdemeanor battery. Williams, 46, was charged with felony aggravated battery. Both were fired.
The Sun-Times spoke with Madden's lawyer on Tuesday, who said regardless of whether her client threw a punch, the two CTA bus drivers should not have behaved the way they did.