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A 21-year-old woman has been charged with murder in the fatal shooting of a SEPTA bus driver

Philadelphia police said Zhontay Capers, 21, shot Bernard Gribbin six times.

Crime scene officers and detectives gather evidence at the fatal shooting of a SEPTA bus driver on Thursday morning.
Crime scene officers and detectives gather evidence at the fatal shooting of a SEPTA bus driver on Thursday morning.Read moreAlejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
    by Rodrigo Torrejón
    Updated 
    Published 

A 21-year-old Belmont woman who police say shot and killed a SEPTA bus driver in Germantown on Thursday morning is now facing a murder charge.

Zhontay Capers, of the 4300 block of Reno Street, was charged with murder and related crimes overnight in connection withthe fatal shooting of Bernard N. Gribbin, 48, a Route 23 SEPTA bus driver, said Interim First Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore.

Just before 10:30 a.m. Thursday, police said, Capers shot Gribbin six times, near Germantown and Abbotsford Avenues. Police found Gribbin in the driver’s seat of the bus with gunshot wounds to his torso and throat and took him to Einstein Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead just minutes later, at 10:36 a.m.

Gribbin, of Abington, had been a SEPTA employee for 12 years, the transit authority said.

Early indications were that the shooter may have shot Gribbin after a dispute, Vanore said. But SEPTA Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson said bus security footage did not appear to show any “substantive interaction” between the shooter and the driver.

“Literally, it occurs without apparent rhyme or reason. ... For some unknown reason, she began firing as she was exiting the bus.” The woman then reboarded, fired, and left the bus, said Lawson.

In surveillance video, Capers is seen holding a gun at the front of the bus moments before she shot Gribbin, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Friday.

The motive for the shooting is unclear, said Vanore. No weapon was recovered and no other injuries were reported.

The fatal shooting came amid contract negotiations between SEPTA and Transport Workers Union Local 234, which represents the authority’s bus, trolley, and subway operators. One of the central issues at play in negotiations was safety.

TWU Local 234 had been demanding more law enforcement to combat a rising number of assaults on its members, and better protection for the public from crime and antisocial behavior on the transit system.

A strike was averted Friday, after SEPTA and the union reached a tentative agreement on a one-year contract.