Metal Detectors To Be Installed For Greyhound Bus Passengers

You go through a security checkpoint and a guard waves a wand over your body to ensure you don’t have any guns, knives or explosives on you before you get on board.

It sounds like the procedure you’ve become used to at airports across the world.

But it will soon be happening at your local bus terminal in Toronto.

Greyhound has decided to increase security on the vehicles it runs in this country, partially as a response to a horrific crime that made headlines around the world.

Beginning this week in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, passengers will be swept by hand held metal detectors before they’re allowed to board. The three cities are the test run for the idea, and it will then spread to all other places where the bus line runs, including Toronto.

You will also be forced to put your luggage in cargo compartments instead of bringing it onboard. The only exceptions – your wallets and your purses.

It follows the brutal beheading of a man onboard a Greyhound bus four months ago. Carnival worker Tim McLean was attacked by a fellow passenger armed with a large knife on July 31st. He was repeatedly stabbed and then decapitated by his attacker.

Vince Li remains in custody and has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. His trial will begin in the spring.

The bus company acknowledges the brutality of the crime led them to the review, but says it was only part of the reason and that they had spent two years studying security improvements before the infamous incident.

There’s no immediate deadline for the screenings to be introduced in Ontario.