The attorney for a man accused of hijacking a C-Tran bus and trying to divert it to Portland asked for a court-ordered mental health assessment for her client to determine if he can assist in his defense.
Anthony S. Lybeck, 31, appeared Monday morning in Clark County Superior Court on allegations of first-degree kidnapping and harassment in connection with the Friday evening incident. He also appeared on suspicion of theft of a motor vehicle in a separate case.
Judge John Fairgrieve set Lybeck’s bail at $200,000 in the alleged kidnapping case.
Vancouver defense attorney Therese Lavallee was appointed to represent Lybeck. She told the judge she recently represented Lybeck in another case and requested he receive a competency evaluation. Lybeck shook his head in agreement. He will be back in court Wednesday to enter the order.
Lybeck was convicted April 5 in Superior Court of second-degree taking a motor vehicle without permission and was sentenced to 35 days in jail, court records show. It’s unclear when he was released from the Clark County Jail. He also has a 2012 conviction for conspiracy to commit delivery of a controlled substance-marijuana and a 2010 conviction for communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, court records show.
Emergency dispatchers received a call at 6:06 p.m. Friday about a bus driver on Route 72 who was being held hostage near Northeast Covington Road and Northeast Fourth Plain Boulevard. A man, later identified by police as Lybeck, boarded the bus, implied he had a firearm and demanded to be taken to Portland, according to the Vancouver Police Department.
The driver said she didn’t see a firearm but complied and took the southbound Interstate 205 onramp. She activated the bus’ emergency alarm to alert dispatchers to the situation, C-Tran spokeswoman Christine Selk previously told The Columbian.
Vancouver police officers responded and began pursuing the bus, which was reportedly traveling 48 mph in the middle lane, according to emergency radio traffic monitored at The Columbian.
The call taker could hear over the open microphone on the bus that the suspect was telling the driver to keep going, and she was yelling that she couldn’t because of pursuing police, according to an affidavit of probable cause filed in the case. Police deployed spike strips to stop the bus, but they were ineffective. They then performed a rolling roadblock in front of the bus to stop it near the north end of the Glenn Jackson Bridge.
The driver, identified in court records as Diana Stewart, was not injured, and there were no other passengers on the bus at the time.
Stewart told police that Lybeck got on the bus and waited for it to empty. He then moved to the front and told her he had a “gun pointed at her, and she was going to drive them where he wanted to go,” according to the affidavit. Court records do not indicate whether police recovered a firearm.
After he was taken into custody, Lybeck told police he “thought he was dosed with something after eating a gummy bear,” the affidavit says. He told police he didn’t know where he boarded the bus but said once he was on the bus he started to feel “very energized.” He then declined to answer additional questions about the incident and asked for a lawyer, according to the affidavit.
C-Tran Chief Executive Officer Shawn Donaghy attended Lybeck’s hearing and said afterward that Stewart is doing well but is shaken up.
“I think we all would be,” he said. “I’ve been in the business for about 20 years, and I can tell you that while these things are extremely rare, they would shake anybody up. We’re just really proud of how she handled the situation on the bus.”
Donaghy said Stewart focused on her training and tried to control the situation the best she could by talking to the suspect and activating the bus’ emergency alert system.
“She did a great job of maintaining traffic knowing that the police were behind her, and they just did an outstanding job of swarming the bus and making sure that incident was resolved quickly,” Donaghy said.
This has happened one other time here in the late 80s or early 90s, he said of the hijacking, and added that such situations are rare.
“We’ve got a lot of great employees that love to serve our community, and they’re out there everyday facing some difficult situation at times. This one sort of falls on the 10 meter,” Donaghy said. “We’re just really proud of what she did and really glad that she’s safe, and can’t wait until she comes back to work.”
