DENVER – A man was charged Sunday afternoon after causing a disturbance on a Greyhound bus and inside the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
The man was on a Greyhound bus heading east around 2:50 p.m. Sunday when he was let off the bus at the west end of the tunnels because of behavior issues and after the bus driver called 911, according to Tim Hoover, a spokesperson for CDOT, and the Summit County Sheriff's Office.
The man tried to get into a CDOT building when employees can stay if they are stranded in the area but could not get inside, Hoover said. Around 5 p.m., he entered the Eisenhower Tunnel and sprayed fire extinguishers at oncoming traffic, Hoover said.
CDOT crews shut down the tunnel for less than half an hour. After Summit County sheriff deputies and Colorado State Patrol troopers arrived, the man was taken into custody.
The sheriff's office said the man, identified as William Dixon, was issued a misdemeanor summons and charged with criminal tampering, obstruction of a roadway and throwing missiles at vehicles. He was taken to the Frisco Transfer Station and given a bus ticket back to Denver.
Hoover said the man told investigators he had been heading to Salt Lake City. No one was injured during the ordeal, Hoover said.
And around 6:50 p.m., another man on a Greyhound bus, identified as Raul Torres, was reported to have assaulted another passenger on eastbound I-70 near the mile marker 203 overlook.
After the driver stopped, Torres ran into eastbound traffic on I-70, but he was detained and released on a summons for third-degree assault, according to the sheriff's office. He, too, was taken to the Frisco Transfer Station to wait for another bus, according to Christine Duplan, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office.
The interstate was also shut down in the area separately on Sunday because of spin-outs during the ongoing snowstorm, CDOT said.