NorthwestFebruary 1, 2025

Zane Sparling The Oregonian

After nearly a decade behind the wheel, TriMet bus driver Mike Perrault thought he’d seen it all as the depths of addiction and despair passed by his farebox.

“We’re like social workers without any of the training or support,” the 38-year-old said.

Then Perrault came face to face with death Wednesday. An armed man commandeered his Line 4 bus and forced him on a 12-minute-long nightmare drive through the streets of Portland’s Old Town neighborhood, according to court documents.

Despite the literal gun to his head, the lifelong Oregonian de-escalated the situation, gave the accused hijacker a hug and got home safe to his wife and kids in Oregon City.

“I told him that while he was on my bus, he’d be safe. He could give me the gun or he could put it down, but while he was on the bus, I wouldn’t let anything happen to him,” Perrault said in an interview Thursday.

Hosea J. Chambers surrendered his handgun to Perrault, who dropped it out the window and then dashed from the transit vehicle, court documents report. Chambers remained holed up in the bus for hours until police filled the bus with chemical agents and smoked him out.

The 33-year-old faces charges of first-degree robbery and kidnapping. He will remain in custody pending a bail hearing.

The harrowing ordeal began as Perrault was driving a half-dozen passengers from St. Johns across the Steel Bridge at 12:18 p.m. That’s when he said he saw a man with a glinting object standing on the bridgehead ramp at Northwest Glisan Street and Third Avenue.

Simultaneously, a transit dispatcher radioed a shots-fired warning and told Perrault to “tie the bus up” — meaning to immobilize it by engaging the air brake.

The man approached and tapped on the glass of the front bus door with the barrel of his gun. With the brake on and no chance to drive off rapidly, Perrault opened both doors; the man boarded as six passengers fled in terror out the back.

“He’s standing right beside me,” Perrault radioed dispatch, a recording shows, his voice catching at the edges as a man yells incomprehensibly. “You’re OK, buddy, you’re OK. Can you put that down for me?”

“Keep going!” the man responded.

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The next few minutes felt like an hour as Perrault crawled up Glisan to Northwest Fifth Avenue and turned left, then left again down West Burnside Street.

Chambers — who later told officers he had been smoking fentanyl — grew more aggressive and paranoid, according to the probable cause affidavit.

The man allegedly put the gun to the driver’s head and started counting: “Three… Two… One.”

Perrault thought he was about to die. He knew the cameras on board could see and hear everything.

“I told my kids I love them,” he said. “I wanted them to have a recording of that.”

Chambers responded that he had a daughter, too, Perrault said. The gunman ordered him to turn left back onto Northwest Third Avenue — against traffic on a one-way street.

The bus made it back to Glisan Street, now with a train of flashing squad cars right behind the unwilling chauffeur. By fate or fortune, Chambers told Perrault he could stop the bus and leave.

The driver turned to the man standing at the farebox. He realized the situation would remain deadly if Chambers was armed. He says he asked for the gun, and Chambers gave it up without a word. Perrault tossed it out his window.

“He told me, ‘I’m sorry about this. I love you,’” Perrault recounted.

“I told him ‘I love you too.’”

As officers and crisis negotiators surrounded the lone man on the bus, Perrault ran to a nearby TriMet break room and called his wife, who works as an administrator at the transit agency.

After the ride of his life, he was reunited with her and their two kids by nightfall.

Zane Sparling covers breaking news and courts for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach him at 503-319-7083,

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