Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Update 12:29 p.m.: KCBS reports that the suspect, Bobby Brown, has been handed a bail of $5 million. As things go, any nutjob person with $500,000 can bail this man out. My feelings are that he’s a deeply troubled individual, and that, whatever the failings of the penal code, he should at least be kept off the streets (and Muni) for now.
Original post: SFGate (and others) have the goods. A quick post for the non-Twitter crowd.
Photo by Steve Rhodes
I’m anticipating a fair amount of Oscar Grant-related blowback on this (fair enough), but this story in SF Weekly got me wondering — does the crime on BART justify the presence of more BART officers riding BART?
Photo by Flickr user Transit Nerd
Update 3:58 p.m. Tuesday: CBS and others are reporting that the SFPD has, in fact, arrested a suspect in the case.
Update 2:48 p.m. Tuesday: SF Appeal reports that ABC 7 reports that the police have a suspect in custody. SF Appeal cannot confirm the report. we shall see whether it’s true, and whether there’s a good chance that it’s the right guy.
Update 12:36 p.m. Tuesday: SFGate has a few more details and quotes from the victim.
Update 10:58 a.m. Tuesday: KTVU has an interview the victim, as well as a sketch of the suspect.
Update 8:58 p.m.: According to SF Appeal, the SFPD will be releasing images from the surveillance video sometime soon. Let’s hope lynch mobs or vigilante committees don’t form, but that with the public aware of what the perp looks like, he is brought to justice somehow.
Update 5:49 p.m.: MTA says it handed surveillance video of the stabbing over to the SFPD. The video will be used to help the police in their investigation. There is no word on whether or when the video will be made available to the public.
Update:
As of 12:50, SFMTA says that the incident has been cleared.
Original post:
We received an alert from SFMTA that, as of 10:40 a.m., regular J-Church service has been disrupted due to police activity on an outbound J light rail vehicle on Church and 18th Street. Bus shuttles are running between Church/16th and Church/22nd Street.
The alarming part:
“According to initial reports, one female passenger was stabbed by another passenger. The female who was stabbed was transported to San Francisco General Hospital. The severity of her injuries is unknown.”
(from SFMTA).
We will keep you updated.
Photo by Flickr user Steve Rhodes
Our first attempt at spreading a Twitter hashtag goes straight to the dustbin of history. Oh, well. We tried.
Lucky for us (and you), there are some amazing blogs and great newspeople out there attending these middle-of-the-day hearings so that you can keep reading Muni Diaries and Perez stay at work and wish you weren’t. Here are some tidbits from a few:
(Streetsblog SF) Police enforcement on Muni is getting a major overhaul after years of inconsistent officer deployment. Under a revised Memorandum of Understanding between the Police Department and the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, officers will be required to ride lines that most frequently have problems with crime. Station captains will now regularly present Muni crime statistics for their districts at Comstat meetings, where they will be grilled on why crime has increased or decreased. …
At the beginning of the hearing, which was called by Supervisor Bevan Dufty, several Muni riders told stories of experiencing and witnessing violent attacks and robberies on the city’s transit system. One rider, Tim Bishop, said he was attacked in January on a T-Third line vehicle by youths who were shouting anti-gay epithets. When he confronted them, he was beaten unconscious and repeatedly kicked in the head.
(City Insider, an SFGate blog) Deputy Police Chief John Murphy, Muni’s new security boss, detailed plans to significantly improve Muni safety. He said that as opposed to officers randomly boarding buses, a new Memorandum of Understanding between the police department and Muni outlines that officers will be deployed according to the “zone strategy” now used for all crime in the city. Basically, that means tracking crime hot spots on Muni and deploying officers accordingly.
And an audio report of the hearing, from KCBS.
So there you have it. Now that you’ve been a good online citizen and read these reports, how do you feel about Monday’s hearing?
Photo by Flickr user Jamison
Ed. note: This is seriously the umpteenth time I’ve heard what amounts to the same story: at least two thuggy teenagers coordinate holding the back door open while the other(s) prey upon the (usually female) victim, who is texting or using the web on her iPhone, in a seat or standing by the back door. As this storyteller/witness, Mari, says: Be vigilant, and report the crimes. Also, if you can, please attend Supervisor Bevan Dufty’s hearing at City Hall at 11 a.m. this morning. The a propos topic: Muni safety. (If anyone live-tweets or liveblogs the hearing, let us know. The Twitter hashtag is #municrimehearing.)
Friday night, November 20th, I was riding the 38 Geary outbound and at the Webster stop I suddenly heard a woman shout, “Hey! Hey!” A kid (teen) had grabbed her iPhone and jumped off the bus. The woman and other passengers jumped off bus, too and to chase the culprit. Because she had gotten off the bus and left the scene, our driver couldn’t call police.
As bus continued, I heard witnesses talking, and realized I had seen the teens (approximately 13 to 15 years old) on the bus (in fact they were the only individuals under twenty on the bus). One looked very agitated and I almost thought he was concerned about missing his stop—he kept looking for someone behind him on the crowded bus. When he got up I took his seat. Then the iPhone was stolen. Others on bus talked about how the kids had been watching the victim and using non-verbal communication, had coordinated the robbery.
Saturday night, November 21st, I was again riding the 38 Geary outbound, also around the same time of night (around 10pm) that I rode it the previous night. I saw 2 teens board the bus around Van Ness, and I thought I recognized them from the night before, but wasn’t absolutely positive as this night one wore a low baseball cap and the other wore a hoodie with the hood up around his face. I watched them sitting at the back of the bus. As we got to Laguna one of them stood near the door and I saw him nod. Then a third person, in his 20s (per the victim) grabbed a woman’s iPhone and ran off the bus.
The culprits jumped off the bus. This time the victim stayed on the bus. I went up to the bus driver to tell him of the robbery and that it had happened last night and that I believed the 2 teens from the previous night were involved.
In fact, here’s the M.O.: an accomplice waits by the exit door, keeps it open so that as everyone exits the bus the robber can wait until the exit is clear of people then snatch the phone and get away. Both nights they targeted women and both women were not on the phone talking, but rather texting or surfing the web—which makes it easier to take the phone away with force.
The driver called the police and the victim, her family, and I all gave a description of what happened and who we thought were involved.
Please spread the word.
iPhone users beware. Especially on 38 Geary bus.
If you have an iPhone, be sure to register it online so that Police can track it. You must already have it registered for them to be able to track it in a situation like this.
Check out this link to learn more about registering your iPhone: http://www.apple.com/webapps/utilities/freeitracklostandfoundregistry.html
Wow. Just wow. What do you think about what we’re seeing here? Let us know in comments.