PORTLAND — Dale Tozier had plans to retire last month after 13 years as a TriMet bus driver.
But after a long, financially difficult year, he couldn’t call it quits just yet. And rather than reveling in the early days of retirement, he’s now recovering from being shot — while on the job.
Tozier, 73, was nearing the end of his shift May 22 when a bullet came through the front windshield of his bus, hitting him in the shoulder.
The world was spinning, he said. He thought something had exploded — or that he’d crashed the bus.
Tozier suffered a broken clavicle and soft tissue damage.Bulletfragments remain in his shoulder.
“I just didn’t see the bullet coming,” Tozier joked Tuesday, pointing to his left arm, which was held in a sling.
Tozier, a longtime Portland resident, was working on his day off when he was shot on Northeast Halsey Street near 102nd Avenue. He’s in good spirits over three weeks later and isn’t afraid to go back to work.
“People running around shooting bullets into the air” is a public safety problem, he said, but it’s not an issue unique to TriMet.
“Bad behavior and assaults are sort of an epidemic in our society right now,” Tozier said in an interview outside TriMet’s Southeast Portland headquarters. “Drivers are frequently the recipient of assaults. But this was not an assault on a driver. This was just a bullet and I being in the same place at the same time.”
Tozier is grateful for those who helped him, particularly a man who called 911 and a woman who stayed with him on the bus until police arrived.
Right now, Toziercan’t stand for more than three or four hours without intense pain.
It could take him between three months and one year to recover, and it’s unclear if he’ll be able to regain the same movement he had prior to the shooting.
“I don’t know if I can keep driving, but I have hopes that I will come back,” he said. “I don’t know what happens after a shattered clavicle — if I’ll have full use of my arm or stamina to do the job.”
Tozier said driving a bus is the best job he’s ever had.
“I always knew there was some danger in driving a bus, and I think being shot is a fear that all drivers have because we live in a world where people are shooting guns,” he said. “But there’s no particular reason why I would have more fear driving a bus than driving my car or walking in downtown Portland.”
TriMet has announced a $2,500 reward for information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of the person responsible, and Crime Stoppers of Oregon is also offering a cash reward of up to $2,500 for information.
Tipsters should email crimetips@portlandoregon.gov and reference Portland police case No. 21-138251.
The Portland Police Bureau continues to investigate the shooting.
