Unsuck DC Metro: Harrowing Account of Yet More Metro Violence

Monday, April 25, 2011

Harrowing Account of Yet More Metro Violence

From an anonymous reader:

I have never been more disgusted or shocked by what I witnessed Saturday night at the Anacostia Metro. I went to pick up a family member at the Metro, and just as she was telling me about the fights (Yes, plural!) that happened on the Green Line train [between L'Enfant and Anacostia], we witnessed a group of 6 to 8 young black teenagers kick, stomp, punch and push a lone teenage girl.

I could not believe my eyes! I also could not believe there was not an officer in sight.

I had to lay on my car horn for over a minute before the assault stopped.

I called 911, and less than a minute later another fight broke out. Another woman was being assaulted.

Driving away, I finally had to go back up MLK and speak to an officer parked at Savoy Elementary school who headed over to the Metro.

On the way home, my cousin told me about her terrifying ride. She told me about young men punching the trains at L’Enfant, yelling at people, and pushing women. At no time did she see any officers step in.

When she got on the train toward Anacostia, a group of teenagers proceeded to verbally and physically assault a group of young women. One of the boys threw a bottle and another threw the contents of a bottle in one of the woman’s face. The assaults got so out of hand that some people landed on a woman and her baby.

The attacking group had the doors to the train blocked so people couldn’t get off the train. My cousin told me she was so scared that she hid behind some seats and pulled out the box cutter she used for work.

I am outraged. I can't believe a series of assaults would occur between L'Enfant and Anacostia and there would not be a single Metro or D.C. police officer on the scene!

This is not the first time I have experienced unruly teens on the Green Line, and it’s not the first time I have heard of assaults at the Anacostia station.

What are the police doing about this? It’s getting warmer, school is about to be out, and there should be a stepped up presence on the Metro lines at night.

People should not feel like they have to arm themselves to ride the damn train. Clearly, relying on Metro to keep its riders safe is a mistake.

TBD appears to have another account.

Comments (119)

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+27 Vote up Vote down

Chris · 726 weeks ago

Not surprised by this in the least bit. Even Saturday night on the Yellow line in NoVA isn't any better. I was leaving a friend's place around 11pm on a Saturday a few weeks ago and groups of teenagers were harassing everyone at the top of the escalator on the north-bound side of Eisenhower station. I could see it getting bad fairly quickly and was lucky to catch a train after only about 2 mins of being on the platform. It's a shame that parents think it's okay for their kids to wander around late at night, terrorizing metro patrons.

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F'n JD · 726 weeks ago

Saturday night around 10:30 pm 4 MoCo police, 1 FPS and 1 Metro Transit Police cars arresting a black male at Silver Spring station.

Crime wave Saturday?

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Soylent Green Line · 726 weeks ago

Violence on the green line – terrible, tragic, and all too common. We can do and say what we like on blogs like this and amongst ourselves, but until Metro gets serious about policing itself and apprehending these criminals, nothing will change. That, or until someone blows away one of these young punks.

I honestly believe that is the choice Metro faces. It must either start to police itself or recognize that vigilante justice in self-defense is the only other possible outcome.

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Guest · 726 weeks ago

WoW!!! Not once was the fact mentioned that these "unruly teens" PARENTS where not on scene . I am outraged. I can't believe a series of assaults would occur between L'Enfant and Anacostia and there would not be a single parent on the scene!. Lets start holding the parents responsible for there kids and not push them off on the police to take care of.

3 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Anonymous · 726 weeks ago

Carrying a box cutter isn't a bad idea. It's terrible that it is necessary to do so, but I might start carrying one just to make myself feel safer.

6 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Gallery Place · 726 weeks ago

This is a race issue, stop jumping around it. I've seen verbal arguments, fights, and even a woman get drugged on every line of the metro. What was the common denominator? The assailants were all black. Go to NYC, Boston or Atlanta and you will be shocked at how unruly and dangerous the black youth is in comparison to those in D.C. This is a socio-economic problem which needs to be solved by thoughtful leaders, not the perpetual cronies elected to DC public offices.

10 replies · active 622 weeks ago

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Meredith · 726 weeks ago

I guess I just don't understand why Metro cops aren't appropriately deployed where they're needed. I think there should be at least one Metro cop at every station, but I didn't object to their proposal of pulling people out of Vienna and Dunn Loring to focus them where they're needed (Green Line, for example). So even if they haven't made that plan a reality yet, why are there still stations that don't have police officers? Where are they? If they're not at Anacostia, why aren't they at L'Enfant Plaza? This isn't rocket science.

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Sizzle · 726 weeks ago

To be fair, I ride the Green Line to work every morning (Navy Yard, lucky me) and this morning I noticed there were a ton of MPD Officers. When the train went by, it looked like there was one in every compartment. The cop in my compartment was there the whole time I was on the train (between Ft. Totten and Navy Yard).

Maybe this was in response to the violence over the weekend.

5 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Ever AnonSpooked · 726 weeks ago

I agree parents need to step up but in this situation, Police should still be somewhere reachable. This is so bleepin frightening!

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hoosteen 82p · 726 weeks ago

This isn't a family values issue, and this definitely isn't a race issue, this is a safety issue: parents are to be held responsible for their kids, and Metro police are to be held responsible for the safety of riders. If kids are unruly, its the parents fault; if riders are unsafe, its MPD's fault.

1 reply · active 622 weeks ago

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Slick · 726 weeks ago

Isn't Anacostia, let alone any station East of the River (Deanwood, Minnesota Ave, Congress Heights, Benning Road, etcc) surrounded by the poorest and most crime plagued sections of the area?

None of this is surprising to me, not at the very least.
Except things to get worst as it gets warmer outside and when school gets out for the summer things will be HELL on metro and places like Gallery Place, Downtown Silver Spring, Pentagon city, Largo Town Center, PG Plaza, Wheaton Plaza, and now the National Zoo (in case anyone hasn't noticed thats the new hangout spot.)

8 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Guest · 726 weeks ago

No wonder TBD died. Their story is not very interesting.

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Top Job · 726 weeks ago

Something very ugly is going to happen. Mark my words. These punks will escalate until they begin to murder people by pushing them onto the tracks or beating them to death.

1 reply · active 622 weeks ago

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Top Job · 726 weeks ago

Toads, I don't need to lift a sewer lid to know that there is crap down below and I don't need a Crystal ball to tell me that the situation is out of control.

I also think the cops are as scared as the rest of us or they don't want to deal with the problem. So, they avoid it by hanging out in areas were nothing happens and they act as slow as the molasses in January so that the situation is over by the time they "respond". They are not proactive, and not even reactive, they are deactive.

5 replies · active 622 weeks ago

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Carlton · 726 weeks ago

If I was a cop I wouldn't want to deal with this type of problem. Teens won't spend any time in jail and will take it out on cops when they get the chance. Metro has basically turned into a systems which is for everyone during rush hour, and good luck the rest of the time. It is going to be a very long summer.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Concerned Citizen · 726 weeks ago

As the writer of the letter above which was posted to the MPD 7D listserv I would like to say the following.

1. Less than two weeks ago in an effort to make her feel at ease about riding the train I took her on a tutorial ride from Anacostia to the station near where she works. On our "trail run" I showed her how to purchase a fare card, how to add money to it, how to read the metro map, and how I even told her what to do in the event someone exposed themselves to her on the train. I made a point to show her the emergency button on the train. It never occurred to me in a million years (and I have lived in DC for 15) to tell her what to do in the event she was assaulted or she saw someone else assaulted on the train. Like everyone who has lived in DC for any significant amount of time I have seem my fair share of "strange" or "rude" on the train but not physical violence. Definitely not the type of senseless violence I saw Saturday night.

2. For everyone who assumes that this is the "norm" or should be expected because it happened at the Anacostia metro I would have to strongly disagree. I have lived in Ward 8 for four years and this is never the "norm" and should not be tolerated. Most of the people who live in our community and who use the green line daily are honest, hard-working, and respectful people. They don't engage in this type of behavior and they don't approve of it. Unfortunately, there does seem to be in increase in rudeness throughout the Metro system and to be honest there definitely seems to be an increase in unruly teens on the metro. Whether there are more teenagers being rude or the rudeness is escalating to violence I am unclear. One thing I am sure of is that something needs to be done and done swiftly and aggressively. Some of our DC Youth are acting out because of a lack of instruction on the proper way to behave and the lack of discipline to ensure they follow through.

What ever happened to common courtesy? What ever happened to a man never, ever laying his hand on a woman? What happened to stepping in (and up) when you saw someone doing the wrong thing? What happened to men teaching boys how to act like responsible men? What happened to personal pride?

I am at a loss for words. I hope this latest incident puts Metro and parents on notice (again) that they need to be proactive and not reactive and in my opinion Metro needs to take a "zero tolerance" policy to misbehavior within it's system. You act up -- you get out. End of story.

3 replies · active 622 weeks ago

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Steve · 726 weeks ago

With all this talk of arming oneself while on Metro, are we quickly approached our own "Subway Vigilante"? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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joeb · 726 weeks ago

Metro has the funding for "terror" this certainly fits the bill for terror.... Get in there and walk these trains... start arresting trouble makers and ban them from the system... if they are caught again... arrest them for loitering...

3 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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HurricaneDC 76p · 726 weeks ago

Perhaps we ought to outfit our transit police like Marines, since evidently the Metro is becoming more like a lawless war zone than a transit system in the capital of the USA.

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Top Job · 726 weeks ago

My friend is in the process of inventing a safety product called Porcupine. Essentially, it is a jacket with retractable "quills" designed to thwart a physical assualt. You pull a cord on the jacket (which is remarkably lightweight and also attractive) and out come very sharp quills that also deliver an electric jolt coupled with a hyperdermic dose of a concentrated poison extracted from black widows, Cobras, and box Jelly fish. I helped him field test the jacket on some pitbulls that were provided to us by Michael Vick - they were thrown about 7 feet just from the electrical jolt and the poison rendered the dogs deceased within 23 seconds. The sharp quills cut into there flesh like rice paper. I wear a prototype on the train. Some sinister looking youths got on the trian and I pulled the cord and yelled "porcupine!:" - the sight of the quills alone made the youths get off at the next stop.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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HunterWorthen · 726 weeks ago

Wait, were the teenaged girls being attacked white or were they black. How can anyone say this isn't a race issue??? Is it black teens attacking other black teens or is is a pattern of violence against white people only?

9 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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abc · 726 weeks ago

I'd say there are many causes both metro related and non-metro related to this problem (in no particular order):
-Metro police waste a ton of money on too much administration that is overpaid to just sit around in an office verses actually being out at a station.
-the pc code and race card
-lack of accountability for the parents-take their welfare checks, arrest them too, bet that slows down the violence quickly.
-horrifically far leftist courts who just throw the kids back on the streets to harass the police officers who actually try to stop this.
-the welfare system that supports the breeding of unwanted children to drug addicts.
-a lack of interest among the average person of working together to put a stop to this. If there are 8 teenagers and a few hundred people at the station and they jumped them consistantly I bet that would put an end to this fast.
That is just to name a few.

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Todd · 726 weeks ago

The pendulum has swung too far in favor of "children's rights." You spank your kid and all of sudden Child Protective Services shows up at your front door. A teacher pulls a violent kid out of class by his ear and all of sudden there is a lawsuit. Juveniles are coddled by our judicial system. As a result, they have no respect for authority or their elders. There is plenty of blame to go around. However, as a first step and to deal with the situation in this post, I would like to have the legal right to take a baseball bat and/or gun and go up and do whatever needs to be done to protect the person that was being assaulted, regardless of their age, race, or gender.

4 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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abc · 726 weeks ago

By the way I have to say I would say the chances that the violence will end as a result of the metro police is about 5 percent and the chances it will end when someone just gets sick of it all and shoots (or somehow else kills) one or more of these little black teenage gangsters will be about 94 (I'll leave 1 percent for the unexpected). In fact I don't think it is a matter of if this will happen more as to when. They look for easy victims, but they will pick the wrong person, be so arrogant just not to care, or someone will defend someone. When they do the race card will be incited I'm sure or some other nonsense. No one will dare and blame the "parent" who reared such a little monster that someone had to kill them in order save their own life or that of someone else the little monster was attacking.

5 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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HunterWorthen · 726 weeks ago

Trust me, if it was a group of white Georgetown Prep teenagers beating up a lone black teen or other black person it would be FRONT page news. DC is barely a black majority anymore. Where are the roaming angry and excited groups of white or Hispanic or Asian kids? That's right, there aren't any to speak of. But this behavior has become commonplace and accepted amongst black kids, I guess, to the point that it isn't even newsworthy anymore. But, no, not a race issue and even to suggest that is racist, huh?

3 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Concerned Citizen · 726 weeks ago

UPDATE: I just picked my cousin up from the metro and she told me she had to jump off a blue line train to avoid another fight. These time teenage girls threatening to assault a lone woman.

This is just out of control. We have decided that for her safety it would be best if she bring her car in from out of state and drive for the duration of her visit. In her words, "she wasn't built to deal with this type of stuff [the metro fights]."

As a DC resident I am embarrassed this has been her experience on DC public transportation.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Annie · 726 weeks ago

Look at what happened at African American Day at the zoo today. Mayhem, a stabbing ..

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RedLineROFL · 726 weeks ago

I've often considered buying some pepper spray for protection since I ride down to Suitland on the green. I think it's time to do it.

5 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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guest · 726 weeks ago

So when is the mainstream media going to start investigating and reporting on the increasing violence on metro and at metro stations?

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Ted williams · 726 weeks ago

It's time for these reports of Metro violence to stop fudging critical details. Don't say "youths" committed such-and-such crimes -- state clearly the race of the perps and the victims. Sure, we all know the vast majority of Metro crime is committed by perps of the Unmentionable Demographic, but a first step in coming to grips with this epidemic of violence in Metro is honestly reporting the facts -- all the facts.

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Top Job · 726 weeks ago

There are power in numbers. We need to start grouping together and casting out the handful of thugs. Imagine surly teen getting approached by 20 or 30 of us. The fear would be reversed and the teen would learn that society will not tolerate his/her stuff.

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cathy · 726 weeks ago

not to go too big picture, but if metro can't keep the system safe from teens, how are they keeping us safe from terrorism? cameras, police, bag checks - security theatre?

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John · 726 weeks ago

Just wondering, how many posts in this article alone has "abc" complained about black people? Just trying to get a count. He seems to harbor some serious racial attitudes towards black people. You can't say racism is dead in america. People are just less likely to show their views in public. However, when they can be cowards on the internet, thats when it call comes out. abc=racist coward.

2 replies · active less than 1 minute ago

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Black Fedora · 725 weeks ago

I'm black and it's not racist. The black teens are the ones that are causing the problems on metro. I say call it like you see it, so that something can be done about it. I pray to God I'm never attacked but if that day comes..they will not have it so easy.

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montagthezine 51p · 725 weeks ago

i am really getting to hate the way this city operates. metro police obviously are of little help, and the problem will likely only get worse. which leaves metro riders left to fend not only for themselves, but their fellow passengers. the slogan should be... if you see something, do something. hell, carry some mace on you just in case someone else gets jumped!

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Braveheart · 721 weeks ago

When people start fighting back and stop being such pussies, this will stop. I always carry mace with me and will not hesitate to use it. All these people understand is violence (watch the parents with the young ones in a supermarket sometime), so if that is all they understand, let's give it to them. Quit whining and do something to defend yourselves people!

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Chief · 640 weeks ago

Black on white crime is never labeled as such. If it were a mob of white people beating on two black girls it would be in the headlines every where about what race they were.