Masked LA Bus Rider's Threat: 'I Have Ebola!'

In what authorities are investigating as a possible terrorist threat, a masked man on a Los Angeles bus announced yesterday afternoon: "Don't mess with me, I have Ebola!" The passenger's warning—which officials think was a hoax—prompted the driver to be quarantined as officials try to identify the rider using security video, the Los Angeles Times reports. The man, who boarded the bus with a woman, "leaned into the driver" when he made his claim, a transportation spokesman says, as ABC 13 reports.

Seven minutes later, he pulled off the surgical mask and left the bus. Some other passengers hurried off the vehicle, which the driver took to a bus yard, the Times reports. "The purpose of ... this statement made by this man is to sow fear," says the transportation rep, as NBC Los Angeles reports. "Someone who wants to sow fear is a terrorist." Despite authorities' doubts that the passenger actually had Ebola, the driver is under observation in a hospital, the bus has been sequestered, and the mask has been recovered and is being analyzed. (A similar incident happened on a plane last week.)