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Lawyer For Woman Accused Of Fatally Pushing Elderly Man Off Bus Says Video Doesn’t Tell The Whole Story
Cadesha Bishop, 25, has been charged in the death of 74-year-old Serge Fournier, who police say had simply asked her to be "nicer" before she pushed him off a Las Vegas bus.
An attorney representing a woman charged with murder for allegedly pushing an elderly man off of a bus says that there’s more to what happened that day than what’s shown in the security footage.
Cadesha Bishop, 25, was arrested and charged with murder earlier this month after the death of 74-year-old Serge Fournier. The two had had a tense interaction on a city bus in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 21, with Bishop allegedly pushing Fournier off the bus and onto the ground after he asked her to be nicer. Fournier died the following month, on April 23, with investigators linking his death to complications stemming from the injuries he sustained in the incident.
Shocking video footage released last week shows Bishop shoving Fournier out of the bus and Fournier, who was using a walker or a shopping cart to help support himself, falling to the ground. However, amid widespread backlash, Bishop’s lawyer claimed on Thursday that there is more to the story than meets the eye.
There are “circumstances and events ... that have yet to be made public,” attorney Michael Becker said in an email to the Associated Press. He did not elaborate on what those circumstances are.
“By no means did Ms. Bishop intend to kill Mr. Fournier,” he continued. “We definitely intend to contest the charges.”
Bishop is alleged to have been shouting at other passengers prior to the March 21 altercation, according to a police report obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Police say that Fournier then told Bishop to be “nicer” to the other people on the bus.
Bishop is alleged to have then pushed the elderly man off of the bus “with enough force that he never touched any of the steps,” police said in their report.
“His head landed approximately eight feet from the bus doorway,” the report reads.
Authorities say that Fournier then walked off the bus with her son in tow and did not stop to offer Fournier help. When police arrived on the scene in response to a report of a battered man, they found Fournier bleeding from the head, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Fournier died the following month, with the Clark County Coroner’s Office concluding that he’d died from complications of blunt force torso injuries.
Bishop, who in the past pleaded guilty in relation to two domestic violence misdemeanors in 2012 and 2013, was charged on May 6 with the murder of an older person. She is currently free on $100,000 bond but has submitted to electronic monitoring, according to the Associated Press.
A preliminary hearing of evidence has been set for July 17.
