I have written the facts about what happened Thursday. In a separate post I will write about the assault I witnessed this morning. I will also try and summarize my complaints/suggestions for Metro, regarding how they enable crime on their trains and in their stations.
What happened on my way home from work, ThursdayOn Thursday, November 10 I boarded a Red Line Metro train in Bethesda, around 4:15 p.m., intending to travel to the Cleveland Park station, on my way home, via a 5 station commute that I take every weekday. I was riding on the last metro car, as often is my habit, and I entered through the most forward of the three sets of doors. I sat in the first row of seats on the right side of the train, so I was facing forward in the direction of travel.
My coat was on my lap, my purse and my tote-bag were on my right, in between me and the wall. I was holding my iPod and my SmartTrip card. The train was not crowded, but there were about 15-20 other passengers. At Van Ness, a group of about 5-7 high-school age teenagers boarded the train. Two of them sat behind me, and 3-4 sat in the first two rows across the aisle. One of them, wearing a green camoflauge military jacket stood directly in front of me, looked me in the eye, and then sat down next to me. She kept pushing closer into me, so I was thinking about getting up and moving to another seat. At this point, one of them behind me, reached over my shoulder and grabbed my iPod out of my hands. She then stood up, laughing and smiling, and ran to the back of the train, with the others, except for the girl in the military jacket. I stood up to follow them, and the military-jacket girl stood up, and grabbed me by the shoulders. One of the others grabbed my Smart Trip card, which I had left on the seat when I stood up. I told them they wouldn’t be able to use it anyway, since I had registered it, but they laughed and kept it.
I was still holding my jacket, purse, and tote-bag. I was visibly upset, and asked the laughing girl in the back to please return my iPod. The group laughed, and the military-jacket girl continued to hold me at the front of the train. She then threatened me, “Don’t you touch my sister!” and I assume she was referring to the girl who took my iPod, and was laughing in the back of the train. At this point I became frightened that the girl might have a weapon in her jacket, and I jumped backwards, away from her. I looked around at the other passengers on the car, and I asked them repeatedly if any of them would help me. Someone asked me what was happening, and I said that this group of teenagers was mugging me, and that the ones in the back had my iPod. Someone asked me if I knew these girls, and I said no. One man with a mustache got up and went to talk to the train driver on the intercom. Another man got up and tried to talk to the military jacket girl, and reason with her. The train stopped at Cleveland Park, and the girls got off the train. I also got off the train, and they jumped back on, so I got back on, and this went on back and forth. I held the doors open, but the driver yelled to let go of the doors, even though the man with a mustache was still on the intercom, telling the driver what was going on. The driver just kept trying to close the doors on me, and saying over the intercom for me to let go of the doors. I yelled for help to the station manager, but he/she never came out of the booth.
The group of muggers than ran over to a train which had pulled up, going in the opposite direction. I ran over after them, and boarded the train one car behind them. I called 911, which transferred me to Metro Police. At the same time, I asked a woman on this train to intercom the driver, and she did. The woman pointed out to me that the group was moving through the emergency only doors between the trains, away from us, and she suggested I follow them, but I did not. I spoke to Transit Police on my phone, and told them what was happening. Meanwhile the driver of the second train repeatedly yelled to me to stand clear of the doors, and he slammed them on me several times. He held the doors shut on me so hard, that I was in pain, and when he released them, I stepped into the train, so as not to be hurt again. The woman on the train was still talking to him on the intercom, but I don’t know what their conversation was. After the driver shut the doors, the train departed, for Van Ness. Meanwhile, I spoke with Transit Police on my phone, and I told them no one from Metro helped me at Cleveland Park, and I asked if anyone would be there to help me at Van Ness. She said no one was at at Van Ness, and that no one was at Cleveland Park. Back at Van Ness, the doors opened again. I looked outside, and I saw the group run across again to a train that was traveling in the opposite direction. I also ran across to that train, although I boarded in a different car. I was still on the phone with Metro Police. They asked for the car number, and someone else on the train pointed it out to me. I gave her the number. In any case, the Transit Police on the phone collected my name and phone number, but when the service broke in the tunnel, they didn’t phone me back. After waiting about 30 seconds-1 minute, I phoned 911 again, and they transferred me to Metro Police, and I had to tell my story all over again—still scared and upset, still while trying to keep an eye on the group of muggers. The officer on the phone told me to look and see if they got off at each stop, and advised me to STAY on the train, following them. As each stop passed, I got more and more worried, because no one was waiting to meet me, and although I kept looking to see if the muggers had gotten off, as we traveled more into downtown, there were more and more people getting on and off and it was hard to see. We passed, Cleveland Park again, Woodley Park, Dupont, and it was not until Farragut North that there was an officer waiting on the platform.
I walked up, towards the front of the train to meet the officer. As I passed the train, I tried to look into the other cars to see if I could see them. The officer asked me for descriptions. I wish some of the many other passengers on the train had offered to stay with me, and serve as witnesses to the crime they saw take place right in front of them. None of them did, not on any of the three trains.
The officer wouldn’t let me look through the train, which was at last stopped. She said “other officers” were doing that. Instead she tried to get me to help her with more descriptions of the crime. The train pulled away, and I burst into tears. The officer was kind and patient, and although I couldn’t stop crying, I tried to give her the information she needed, and she tried to answer my questions about Metro’s (in)actions. I asked with disbelief, what Transit Police had meant on the phone when they had told me “no one is in Van Ness or Cleveland Park.” She said, what they meant was “there is a difference between Metro staff and Metro Police. They meant there were no Metro Police at those stations. There were station managers present, but they often don’t respond to situations like this, because they are afraid for their own safety. They are often targets themselves.” She told me that the drivers should have stopped the train. She told me she was at the Farragut North stop already, because she was patrolling for groups like these because “they do this all the time.” It was planned, it was common, and Metro knew about it—but I can’t understand why I had never been warned! How many people have been robbed on the Red Line by groups of teenagers? Why is that information not given to riders, so they can take steps to defend themselves (i.e. standing, not sitting, and keeping valuables out of sight and tightly guarded, and keeping distance between yourself, if you are traveling alone, and between large groups of teenagers) She even gave me information for what to do if I have a “second sighting” because she said that these groups often ride the same trains, at the same time of day. If they are this predictable, why isn’t something being done? Of course they’re riding the same trains, at the same time of day, since they know they will get away with it! They know station managers are too intimidated to come out of their booth, they know drivers do not acknowledge what people tell them through the emergency intercoms, and that the drivers will not stop the trains for crime happening onboard, and they know transit police are rare to be found in most stations, and in that response time is slow enough to give them plenty of time to get away (AND TO EVEN FLEE THE CRIME SCENE BY METRO TRAIN!) She also said, rather than calling 911 or to use the emergency intercom to speak with the drivers, that I should call Metro Police directly. Why are the emergency intercoms there if the drivers don’t stop the trains for emergencies? Why is the Metro Police number not written up on the wall and in BIG NUMBERS in every car, for victims to call? Why can’t DC Police respond if they are closer?
A male officer had found 4 young girls, one of them wearing a military jacket. They had me walk by with the female officer to see if I recognized them. I was supposed to be walking by surreptitiously, and so I wasn’t able to stand in front of them and try and figure out if I had seen them.. The one wearing the jacket looked different to me, and I didn’t see the girl that had taken the iPod either. If these girls were the others in the group, and one of them had just been given the jacket by the other girl, I wouldn’t know. And I didn’t want to risk getting innocent girls in trouble. The police had checked their bags already and not found my iPod, so they were allowed to go.
And then they were done with me, said they would keep an eye out, and I was advised to check with Metro Lost and Found, in case the girls “got spooked because it was engraved” and turned it in. I was told to call another number Monday/Tuesday to get a copy of the police report. Two other female officers showed up at the end, expressing sympathy about the loss of my iPod—actually what one of them said was “Man, if someone stole my iPod I’d be so upset.” I am not sure that they understood—I wasn’t crying because I didn’t have my iPod anymore. I was crying because I was violated and scared from my first experience of being a victim of crime. I was scared and shocked because the attack had happened in front of lots of other people, during the daytime, and lots of Metro Staff (station managers, train drivers, transit police on the phone) had had the opportunity to stop the whole thing (by just holding the train and waiting for the transit police to arrive), and no one did anything. I have suspected Metro is not prepared for a terrorist attack on the subway system—I had even volunteered to be a fake victim of a mock attack, so Metro could simulate what would happen. But this was supposed to take place a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina, and the simulation was postponed indefinitely, and I have heard nothing since. I really wanted to be part of the simulation, because I feel that Metro is not ready, and I wanted to be part of any effort to make it more safe. For instance, there are three sets of emergency doors on each car. In an emergency, you can only open one set of the 6 doors—the middle one on the side of the tunnel which should be illuminated. So if you can’t get out of that one door for whatever reason, you have to exit through the emergency doors into the next car—and the fact is that all the time people are blocking these doors with luggage, or because the train is overcrowded. And in a real emergency, in a dark, smoky, crowded and panicked train—I don’t think it really matters if you HAVE managed to read the safety panel (usually in only one spot on the train, and if it is crowded and you can’t move around, I don’t know how anyone would even know about the evacuation instructions), it will be next to impossible to get out.
In any case, the officer told me she had spoken with Woodley Park, and informed them I would be arriving there without a Smart Trip card, and to let me out. Of course when I got there (still anxious to be traveling alone on the Metro after being just attacked on a train) the station manager hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. So I had to tell her the story, and ask her to let me out, so I could go home. I did manage to find my Smart Card, I reported it stolen, the balance was $3 less, so they used it—too bad they couldn’t track them in that way!).
Dear Metro, Here is the conclusion to a lengthy letter to Metro I submitted Monday night. The beginning was my account of the event on Thursday (similar to above). This is the end:
Finally, I would just like to say, I appreciate so much the metro police that have been trying to help, and that are still trying to help. The officer who responded to me first at Farragut North seemed genuinely determined to do her job, and fix what she could. I just wish there were more resources being put into safety on Metro. Obviously police can not help situations when they require long times to arrive at crime scenes. Metro obviously has a responsibility, once it has been informed of emergencies, to at least NOT HELP criminals get away. Providing criminals transportation to flee crime scenes should NOT be part of appropriate Metro protocol. I am sorry if it may be momentarily inconvenient for public transit, but in the bigger picture, safety comes first. Crimes are reported, trains should stop, police should arrive. That is the least that should be expected. Victims should not be ignored on emergency intercoms, victims should not be slammed repeatedly in train doors, when drivers have been informed of the situation. If trains are not stopped to wait for metro police, because Metro does not want extensive delays to transportation--well then maybe that highlights the fact that responses to emergencies and crimes are too long. And if station managers can not mangage to manage security incidents in their stations, I wonder what it is they are really there to manage at all. "Appropriate protocol" needs to be revised so that safety and security may be managed everywhere in Metro.
I believe that Metro´s complacency with their "appropriate protocols" is enabling crime to thrive on the Metro. Metro has a responsibility to its passengers to inform them of all crime incidents, so they can better prepare themselves to attempt safe commutes. Metro has a responsibility to its passengers to not ignore calls for help. Metro has a responsibility to its passengers to contain crime scenes, and to NOT knowingly transport criminals fleeing their crime scenes. If station managers are too intimidated to leave their booths, and answer a lone woman's calls for help from a group attack, then someone else who has authority to not be afraid should be there. Station managers themselves should not have to attend jobs that they fear.
On my first ride on Metro after this incident, I was witness to another assault on a rush hour Red Line metro train, on a train nearing the Bethesda station at 9 am Monday. This incident also allowed the assailant to move freely about the station, and depart at his leisure. I will comment on that situation in a separate form.
