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Horses board DDOT bus in Detroit (Bus camera footage)
The City of Detroit says it’s aware that two horses boarded a DDOT bus recently. The video went viral, and the city shared new footage from security cameras inside the bus.
The City of Detroit says it’s aware that two horses boarded a DDOT bus.
Video of two horses waiting at a bus stop and appearing to board the bus went viral earlier this week.
Horses on DDOT bus
What they're saying:
"While DDOT welcomes service animals to ride the bus when they meet the requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it appears that these horses were brought on the bus for other reasons.
We recognize that the actions in the video were meant to draw awareness to a positive cause, however, we also acknowledge that this presented safety concerns for other passengers on public transit and for the horses themselves.
This is an opportunity to retrain DDOT bus operators and to educate our Detroit residents on everything that we are doing to guarantee safe, timely and high-quality service through DDOT.
The City of Detroit also stands ready to assist our local entrepreneurs by connecting them with programs and opportunities that safely increase awareness of their organizations, and helps them expand their positive impact on our City."
The backstory:
This happened on Nov. 7 just after 5 p.m., according to the timestamp on the security footage.
The horses appear to walk on and off the bus, and didn’t go for a ride.
One of the riders was Jordan Williams, co-founder of Urban City Cowboys.
What is Urban City Cowboys?
What they're saying:
"We teach a lot of the youth in Detroit with disabilities, learning disabilities or physical disabilities, or youth that are not privileged enough to see or experience horses in the city of Detroit, and we pretty much teach them all about equestrian things," Williams told Detroit Live.
He said he was with the horses doing a coat drive in the area, and wanted to bring more awareness to his mission. He and a friend went for a ride along Seven Mile, and stopped and talked to someone at a bus stop, leading to the viral moment.
"It was fun, it was a joke, it was just nice to see the smiles on the faces and get the type of response I got from the bus driver," he said. "I do apologize, too – I didn’t mean to get anybody in trouble, but it was more to just bring awareness to what we do."
Dig deeper:
He said the main thing he wants kids in Detroit to learn from his group is that "there are people that look like them that own horses, train horses and do different things with their horses."
The Source: Information in this article was taken from a statement given by the City of Detroit, and video footage from DDOT onboard cameras.