Local bus drivers plan moment of silence for murdered passenger

KELOWNA – The moment the funeral for the man stabbed to death on a Kelowna bus last week begins in Vancouver, close to 30 local transit buses will pull to the side of the road for a minute of silence honouring the man who so faithfully used their service over the past two years.

Caesar Rosales, a business systems analyst and frequent bus user was killed by another passenger in what police are calling an “unprovoked” and “random” attack.

On Saturday morning at 10 a.m., all transit buses between Peachland and Lake Country will be directed to pull off for what Amalgamated Transit Union president Les Milton calls “a moment of silence and respect”.

Milton says many local drivers got to know Rosales well in the two years he lived in Kelowna after moving from Vancouver. He used transit daily to get to his job at Kelowna Flightcraft and practically anywhere else he needed to go.

“This incident has shaken us to our core,” Milton says. “The drivers felt they needed to do something to show their respect so the company and the union sat down and came up with this. The drivers want (Rosales’) family to know he was a well-respected and well-liked man.

“There has been plenty of stories by drivers in the lunchroom ranging from ‘hey, I know him’ to ‘I’ve had some pretty cool talks with him’,” he says. “He touched a lot of drivers in our organization.”

Milton says the bus on which the tragedy took place was taken out of rotation Thursday and relocated to another city in B.C.

“It looks so much like some of the others in the fleet and we don't want the public wondering if this was the bus,” he says. “They don’t need to be thinking about that.”

To contact the reporter for this story, email Adam Proskiw at aproskiw@infonews.ca or call 250-718-0428. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.