STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — A hijacked Gwinnett County Transit Bus evaded law enforcement for miles on Tuesday as it chaotically drove through portions of DeKalb, Gwinnett and Fulton counties.
While authorities have not formally identified the driver, Keren Antoine reached out to 11Alive and said her dad was behind the wheel.
"His main priority was really protecting everybody," she told 11Alive. "He tried to be as calm as possible — even reasoning like with the shooter, like if you shoot me, then nobody else will be able to drive this bus."
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said 39-year-old Joseph Grier is accused of shooting and killing a passenger on board the bus Tuesday afternoon and then ordering the bus driver to flee the scene.
"For him, the most terrifying part was honestly being held at gunpoint," Antoine said. "If the shooter had already shot somebody, who's to say that he wouldn't have shot somebody else. So for him, that was the moment where his life kind of like flashed before his eyes."
Video from the 11Alive Sky Tracker shows the bus navigating difficult turns and driving through oncoming traffic. Keren credits her dad's 30 years of commercial driving experience with his ability to make those maneuvers in such a high-pressure situation.
"He didn't want to make any sudden reactions or anything like that. The shooter told him to just drive, and that's what he did," she said. "We're kind of just trying to pick up the pieces and just to see how to move forward because this was a unfortunate situation."
She hopes this incident will spark an increase in protections for bus drivers like her father, though she's not sure whether he wants to return to work.
"He does love driving, but in terms of a public setting, I'm not too sure. I wouldn't want him in that situation," Antoine told 11Alive. "What happened here doesn't just stop here... What matters the most is that we join our voices together so that we can create some type of change."
Her father is a pastor who volunteers in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. She said he acted in this situation like he does anywhere else.
"His life mission is to help," she said. "He travels every month to make sure that everything is all right and everybody is safe and secure."