Friends blame bus hijacker’s cancer

Friends say Bobby Frazier figured he had nothing to lose.

Why else would the 69-year-old veteran hijack a city bus at gunpoint, stumble into his favorite tavern and squeeze off two bullets.

Frazier, they say, is dying of cancer.

“I think he’s just losing it,” said Tyrene Mellon, a friend of Frazier’s and a Special K Pub & Grill bartender. “He’s nothing like that.”

The Spokane man now faces first-degree kidnapping and assault charges, Spokane police spokesman Cpl. Tom Lee said.

The STA bus driver, 54-year-old Buddy Eberly, was on a break preparing for the drive to Cheney when he met Frazier about 10 a.m. Friday. Other than him, the bus was empty as it sat at First Avenue and Bernard.

When Frazier boarded the bus he told the driver: “I’m having a bad day, and it’s about to get worse.”

The frail, aging man peeled back his mustard-colored jacket revealing the .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol in his waistband, Lee said. The retired veteran wanted Eberly to take him to his favorite tavern in Hillyard. The bus driver did what he was told. Frazier left the gun in his waistband.

Frazier, beat down, his friends say, from at least six months in chemotherapy, didn’t notice that Eberly had changed the bus’s destination sign to say: “Call Police.”

Another STA employee did and called authorities for help.

When the bus reached the Special K at Market and Garland, Frazier exited, thanked the driver and sauntered into his usual watering hole.

Darrell Murphy, another tavern regular, sat at the bar chatting with Mellon. Frazier looked “disheveled,” like he’d been drinking or had just woken up, Mellon said.

What happened next shocked as much as it saddened them, Murphy and Mellon said later.

Frazier walked up to Murphy, told him to leave and raised the gun. “Get the hell out,” Frazier reportedly said. “I mean it.”

Mellon told Frazier to leave because, in his condition, she didn’t plan to pour him a drink. She thought the gun was a fake.

Frazier raised his pistol, fired it and the bullet narrowly missed Murphy’s head, Mellon said. The next shot hit a wall behind the bar.

Mellon stormed around to the other side, pushed Frazier up against the bar and grabbed his arms. Murphy snatched the pistol.

“I grabbed him by the scruff of his coat, threw him out of the bar and locked the door,” Mellon said. Police had already arrived because of the transit authority’s call. They took Frazier into custody immediately.

“I didn’t know it was a real gun until the police told me,” said Mellon.

Police emptied Frazier’s pockets. Dozens of bullets, two minibottles of Rumple Mintz and a small, black-tooth comb were among the items strewn across the patrol car’s hood. Frazier, handcuffed, sat in the back seat awaiting a trip to the Spokane County Jail.

Frazier has been patronizing Special K for at least two years.

Cathy Foubert, another Special K bartender, said Frazier has been undergoing his cancer treatments at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “I think he has stomach cancer,” she said.

Frazier lives alone in downtown Spokane, Foubert said. He’s been retired for many years.

Murphy, who also considers himself Frazier’s friend, said he’s seen his pal’s illness progress.

“He’s been getting sicker and sicker,” Murphy said. “I pat him on the back and tell him he’s lookin’ good today, to make him feel better.”

Murphy looked down, his mouth fixed in a frown. “It’s sad he’s gotten to this point,” he said. “It just blows me away.”

Shaken by the events but willing to finish her shift, Tyrene Mellon went back to tending bar after police left the tavern. Special K Pub & Grill owner John Kroker was there to make sure everything went smoothly after the ordeal.

“It’s just lucky no one got hurt,” Kroker said.

The tavern’s phone rang, and he answered it. He paused as he listened to his caller and then replied, “Yeah, Tyrene draws a rough crowd.”