Unsuck DC Metro: Is Metro's Fight Problem Covered Unevenly?

Monday, August 9, 2010

Is Metro's Fight Problem Covered Unevenly?

The Bethesda rumble

So, the big news with Metro this past weekend was a brawl at Gallery Place/L'Enfant Plaza. It was ALL OVER the mainstream media, even getting a mention on a national outlet.

Yet, as first reported here a few weeks ago, there was another extremely violent brawl at Bethesda. That near riot was ignored by the media.

It was certainly not without drama. One terribly injured person, unable to remain standing because of the beating they'd taken, fell onto the tracks, and those who tried to help were nearly run over by an oncoming train.

So why does one get so much play in nearly every major TV, internet and print outlet while the other is virtually ignored and not even mentioned in the coverage of the L'Enfant fight? You'd think the media would at least like to tie to two together to show that Metro has a safety issue which can erupt anywhere.

Instead, if you read the comments on the Post's site, the conversation is largely about race, discrimination, education, poverty, some really wacky shit, pretty much anything but what Metro could be doing to prevent large scale fights within the system.

Do you think the coverage is uneven or spot on? Why? What do you think Metro could do to stop this sort of thing?

Comments are moderated, so if you want to be an idiot, better go leave your pearls of wisdom at the Washington Post's site where you can expound away.

Comments (33)

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+10 Vote up Vote down

nosepicker · 763 weeks ago

From my very limited knowledge of these situations, while both were scary for witnesses, no one but the participants was injured during the Bethesda one. That was just idiots beating each other. With the Gallery Place incident, however, innocent bystanders were targeted and seriously injured. That's the reason the latter was big news (because YOU, the news viewer, could be endangering yourself just by riding metro), while the former was not.

3 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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guest · 763 weeks ago

The bystanders at Bethesda were very nearly treated to witnessing someone get run over by a train. I'd count that as traumatic. But you're right, it would appear as if the event Friday was bigger.

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superseiyan -99p · 763 weeks ago

"With the Gallery Place incident, however, innocent bystanders were targeted and seriously injured."

Hmm. Mind expanding on that? I didn't know innocent bystanders were *targeted*, which is not the same thing as being caught in a stampede or something....but it may be an aspect of the story I missed.

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ParachutingPanda · 763 weeks ago

I think what nosepicker is referencing is the WaPo article today that interviewed a guy who was trampled on (he has a broken shin now) and he said that he witnessed some of the people attacking others and then seeking out people to attack. That implies that the perpetrators were intentionally looking for someone to harm, but it doesn't say that the people being attacked were random.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti...

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BobJoe · 763 weeks ago

Where are the Metro Police? I only ever see them at the fare gates, and even then they are usually talking or texting on their phones. I almost never see them walking in the station, and I NEVER seem them walking through cars on moving trains.

With no police presence, I'm suprised we don't see more fights on trains and platforms.

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Anon · 763 weeks ago

The MTPD spends MILLIONS on the fanciest radiation detection technology, more millions on explosive detection gear, crazy observation towers and those ridiculous T-3 things. They should be spending that money on hiring more cops so that they can respond to incidents like these in a timely manner. Like so many things with Metro, it's another case of skewed priorities.

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Joshua · 763 weeks ago

Unfortunately this is a problem that goes back to the feds. I know for sure that the T-3 devices were paid for with a homeland security grant. The other things sound like funds that got distributed through homeland security funding too. Instead of racking up the federal deficit with useless expenditures like these maybe the feds could actually send the money to hire more boots on the ground.

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Doyle005 · 763 weeks ago

You are confusing MTPD with TSA. TSA is the agency that has funded 'he fanciest radiation detection technology and more millions on explosive detection gear'.

Also, are you saying that two fights on the Metro warrant the same amount of attention as detection of explosives and nuclear devices?

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Illoper · 763 weeks ago

The Green Line fight fits the narrative. Period.

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Godsend Conspirator · 763 weeks ago

metro is dangerous. hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband

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Will · 763 weeks ago

I think the large disparity in coverage between the two events was that DCFEMS dispatched a mass causality incident for L'Enfant Plaza.

As for the comments on The Post, nothing out of the normal for that site.

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anonymous · 763 weeks ago

wasnt the bethesda fight on a sunday afternoon? the timing of the news cycle plays into it, as does race, location, class...

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Metro User · 763 weeks ago

I think the recent fight was put upfront in the news because the Washington Post and other DC news outlets wanted to localize and join the media craze that has hit LA and NYC about their recent summer youth brawls. Both those cities had mass injuries and gunfire during the respective events, but DC's was biggest with 70 people involved as reported by police.

It's a sensationalism that draws readers/viewers/ratings. Remember that year all those people were bit by sharks off the coast of Florida and it was in the news every other day? That was actually a slow year for shark bites, but when the news outlets pick up on something new or sensational, they compete with eachother and bring it way out of perspective.

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Ever onward · 763 weeks ago

Well, the Post is not very helpful nor accurate these days so perhaps we should just discount them. Friday they listed a multiple murder as being in New Carrollton. They then said Lanham. It was in Riverdale. 3 separate cities, yet they could not find a map?

I, too, immediately thought of the Bethesda fight when I heard about this one. I, too, wondered why they pretty much ignored Bethesda's and yet made this into the "news of the day." Perhaps because it hit more than one station?

Either way, gangs and teenagers out of control are making Metro sound like a bad sci fi movie. What's a normal, boring person to do? Take "cop classes?" Cry out for Superman? (or is it Spiderman we need here?)

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Ever onward · 763 weeks ago

I have been contemplating my own question. (It keeps me sane at times on Metro.)

I believe Superman would not be of much help. No room to fly and those laser beam eyes would only screw up the metro train or, Gods forbid, an escalator.

Spiderman would work. He could simply wrap up all of em and hang em at the top of the station for a few hours. Tourists could snap photos of the "Strange beehive like things hanging in the metro stations. " :D

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Guest · 763 weeks ago

This fight exasperates the degradation of the Chinatown area by late-night hooligans.

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Jar · 763 weeks ago

Its the bus stop that denigrates the metro stop. I get off there everyday for work and the people who are waiting on the bus get hot and yell at each other.

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Kevin · 763 weeks ago

I think you mean exacerbate.

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superseiyan -99p · 763 weeks ago

- It is uneven. This was NOWHERE on the Washington Post. At all. I'm actually pretty surprised by that. You have people talking about unsafe stations, or "that's what you get on the green line" when before this, the previosu two high profile brawls were at Union Station and Bethesda.

- odd thing is if you read the comments on the Post articles on the Gallery Place brawl, there's lots of call of security and increased police president. I have a hunch that the same crowd would also complain about nanny state and police state if "orderly conduct" was made a law, or if there were more cops. For me I'm neutral on that, I'm not afraid of "loud young teenagers", who are apparently scaring droves of people away from the Metro station.

- Speaking about the Gallery Place brawl, where is the number of brawlers (70) coming from? What's the source on that? Security/police estimates? I haven't seen it questioned. I have a feeling it was possibly as few as 15-20 people.

- Other question--what happens in New York? I'm curious.

1 reply · active 763 weeks ago

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Metro User · 763 weeks ago

This is where I heard of the brawling of NYC and LA.:
http://gawker.com/5608087/annual-summer-violence-...

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superseiyan -99p · 763 weeks ago

I am going to ask the Washington Post Ombdusan and ask about why coverage was uneven. You can do so here too: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/link...

Be civil, and be polite of course.

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dan · 763 weeks ago

i agree with the poster who said earlier that this isn't so much a race issue as a youth issue. it's summer in dc. all of these kids are out of school, and what, exactly, are they supposed to be doing with their time? my girlfriend and i live next to convention center and purposefully avoid chinatown as much s we possibly can for this exact reason. it's positively insane there in the summertime, especially on the weekends.

kids congregate and loiter in the absence of anything more productive to do. if i were a 16-18 year old kid in dc in the summertime, i'd probably be hanging out at gallery place with nothing better to do, too.

this doesn't begin to exuse their barbarous behavior. but i can understand the conditions that would allow something like this to happen.

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Truth · 763 weeks ago

Lord of the Flies.

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JaneQPublic · 763 weeks ago

The Examiner at least mentions the Union Station fight. Is it possible that the Bethesda incident slipped under the radar? I do think the melee at L'Enfant sounds like a bigger deal, simply because of the sheer number of people involved and the way it traveled from one location to another. It also really is indicative of the kind of aggressive behavior often displayed in the evenings and on weekends when riding metro downtown, at least based on my own experiences.
http://www.examiner.com/x-59941-DC-Crime-Examiner...

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Grace · 763 weeks ago

I don't have any suggestions to offer on how to deter youths from fighting in the stations, or prevent that from affecting passengers. I don't think having more cops around would solve this kind of problem. The smaller fights might get broken up, but something of this magnitude? It wouldn't have mattered if there were 20 Metro cops at L'Enfant Plaza/Gallery Place if there were really 70 people fighting.

However, with regards to the Bethesda incident - Metro has no money right now, so I understand that we could not expect to get this proposal enacted for many years to come. But installing platform screen doors or gates could help prevent the type of accident that almost occurred at Bethesda as a result of the fight, because they would prevent people from falling or being knocked onto the platform.

For more info, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_screen_door...
and/or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_platform_g...

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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@kara_h · 763 weeks ago

Not to mention that if they do it right (okay, a girl can dream) they can keep the tunnels at a lower pressure and make the trains more energy efficient.

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Anon 2 · 763 weeks ago

And where is the energy going to come from to achieve the lower pressure? You're going to have to use massive fans to lower the pressure...add in the fact that we're talking about a very very very leaky tube and you'll end up spending more money on "lowering the pressure" instead of on safer or more efficient train-sets.

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guest2 · 763 weeks ago

I actually regularly read this and a few other local transit blogs, and I missed your coverage of Bethesda until it was linked in a story about the L'Enfant violence. That was practically being live tweeted on @DCFireEMS, and MPD's response was much more public than the police department in Bethesda. The 70 participant number was reported by MPD, they had protocols in place for mass casualty events, and they publicly responded. Bethesda seemed to shove the whole incident under the rug, which effectively kills a story. Plus, the Bethesda fight was contained within the station - um, hooray for the crazy waits on the Red Line? The L'Enfant brawl spread through several stops, and even the free H Street connector bus, involving bystanders in much more densely-populated stops.
Could race and class play a part? Of course, but it seems like lazy reporting. While journalists had the L'Enfant story land in their lap through MPD, the Bethesda fight required some legwork.

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Me11 · 763 weeks ago

Why post a silly thing like this here? We all know what's ACTUALLY going on here with this post, the person's trying to suggest that becaue the races of the Bethesda "fight" were likely white, and the races of the most recent fight/melee that stretched across multiple stations and included more than 50 suspects, well the latter was only covered by the press because of the suspects being black.

GROW UP.

These two incidents are NOT the same, not even remotely close in fact.

The Bethesda fight required legwork because it was nothing more than a drunken slapfest where one person fell into the tracks. Nobody went to the hospital, bystanders weren't punched and shoved.

By the way, I'm a realist, and anyone who is like me knows who causes the most real problems, danger wise that is, on metro. Stop pretending the truth isn't the truth.

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@deafinthecity · 763 weeks ago

Yes, it was.

Unsuckdcmetro often times break new stories that media outlets in the area have to come here and steal it. Let's not pretend that they don't and they don't give credit. (Blurring out the name the blog Foxnews really?)

I have no doubt that local media interns come here and thought the Bethesda brawl was a non story. Why? It's in affluent area, the attackers were white and both bethesda and metro police didn't care.

Speaking of, where is the metro police apologist poster that attacked us for calling them out when a woman was sexually harrass and didn't bother to take down a report?

Yeah metro police worked real hard to catch fare jumpers and die in a line of duty due smartrip knives but god forbid they take down a report, patrol stations and keep the youths in check.

DCist also reported the bethesda brawl (link back here) didn't bring that up in their recent report. They only mentioned Union station and if you read the comments, someone said it was a different story that why it wasn't mentioned. Are kidding me with that with BS? The union station story was different so why did they bring it up?

I'm not surprised by the comments about race. As usual as someone said yesterday, black is the default race. People saying things like thugs, trash etc needs to stop sugarcoating and come out and say the N word cause that's what you really want to say.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Ever and Anon · 763 weeks ago

Hey, not all ignore Unsuck. I saw them on Channel 4 news last week and the name was in big bold letters on the top of the screen, held there for awhile. Go Unsuck!

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Malnurtured Snay · 763 weeks ago

Man, you beat me to the bunch.

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blib · 763 weeks ago

What's interesting is if Metro Police can't handle a brawl, how will it be equipped to handle a terrorist threat?

From http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local-beat/Metr... :

"The Department of Homeland Security warned Metro about an unconfimed threat to the D.C. Metro system on Sunday.

NBC4 obtained an internal memo from Homeland Security about the concern. Someone traveled to Turkey last July to obtain a U.S. visa to come to the States to blow up an unspecified Metro station, the memo said.

"The information that we have has a low level of credibility," said David Webb of the Metro Transit Police. "There is not a lot of information that suggests a time or place where this person is even capable of conducting such a crime."

Metro said commuters should always be vigilant and report any suspicious activity. Since December, 20 more Metro security officers have been added to patrol the 1,500-square-mile system."