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(34 posts)

Seattle Metro bus attack (video)


  1. Jiggers
    Member Profile

    Jiggers

    I would love to say a lot about this incident, but then again, I'd be considered a racist if I'd really could say what I wanted to. These girls have a career behind bars pretty soon. It's not surpising that this happened. I've seen worse riding Metro before but, this absoloutely a set up. Study the video and you'll notice how each of the girls role in the chaos, had a certain job to create confusion. They are pro's at doing this. They should be sent to real prison for their actions. Banning them from the Metro system for a year is a joke! Even though this isn't W.S., the 54 serves all the way down and back to the hood. What's your thoughts?

    click,
    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013694732_busattack17m.html

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  2. mightymo
    Member Profile

    So when you say that "the 54 serves all the way down and back to the hood" do you mean that it turns into the 355 (sometimes) and goes to Shoreline (where this bus was headed) or do you mean that it goes into some nebulous area in south/south of West Seattle that qualifies to be "the hood"?

    I think this is more a sad story -- these teens had priors already! And I'm sure there's a chance of a racial angle on the attack (the female victim appears to be Hispanic, her boyfriend Caucasian, the attackers African-American). I personally don't make a habit of showing I have something easily stolen out of my hands (like my mp3 player) any time I'm on a bus with that sort of atmosphere. If they want to steal my New Yorker, go ahead!

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  3. Jiggers
    Member Profile

    Jiggers

    A 17 year old pregnant teen too? Where is her mom? You're a grandma before you're even 40.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  4. moxilot
    Member Profile

    All of the other people on the bus...DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  5. mightymo, the 54 (and 55) turns into the 5 when it goes north of downtown.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  6. hoffanimal
    Member Profile

    Yeah, nice. What, were they raised by wolves or something? I am amazed how "normal" it seemed for them. Another thing that seemed odd is how the guy being attacked remained so calm. I would be freaking out.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  7. I hope my fellow bus riders who read this know that if somebody punches and kicks you on the bus, trying to have a conversation with them is the incorrect response. Moving to the front of the bus and alerting the driver to the situation so they can call the police is the ideal choice. Spraying the whole group down with mace and letting cops and paramedics sort it out would be a close second. Ignoring a teenage girl who is trying to attack you? No.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  8. austin, have you ever actually used mace or pepper spray? Because doing so on a crowded bus full of people doesn't strike me as a wise idea.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  9. Jiggers
    Member Profile

    Jiggers

    n/t

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  10. Yes, I have. Which is why the police and paramedics would have to sort it out. Don't worry though, my sense of humor is pretty dry in the morning, I wasn't actually advocating it.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  11. anonyme
    Member Profile

    It looked as if the boyfriend did an amazing job of restraining himself while trying to protect his girlfriend. What's really disgusting is the total restraint shown by the other passengers, who seemed not to even raise an eyebrow at the events. Apparently not a soul on the bus even bothered to call 911.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  12. moxilot and anonyme: it's called the bystander effect, and it happens a lot. Ironically, the more people witness an incident, the less likely any of them will do something, especially if none of them feel directly threatened.

    I once saw a fight break out while I was working at Bumbershoot, and none of the dozen or so people watching, or the dozen or so more who could see what was happening as they passed by, did anything. Certainly none of them approached me, a festival employee (wearing a staff shirt, festival badge, and radio), to ask that I intervene. I had my finger on my radio button to call security when a couple of them happened to walk by. The two people involved in the altercation were ejected from the festival.

    Most people aren't trained to react to violence in any useful way. One way of countering this if you're in a bad situation is to directly address individuals when asking for help. This often works. People won't intervene on their own because they're worried about the consequences of getting involved, and often don't know what to do.

    Each individual is afraid that if they step in, nobody else will step in as well to help and they'll be left dealing with a violent situation alone. Even police officers get partners, and they're trained and armed. I would've hesitated mightily to get involved in an altercation involving five people unless I knew I had two or three friends with me.

    Toward the end of the video, you do hear people shouting to the driver to stop the bus. It was an articulated bus and crowded, with the fight happening at the back, which means it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the driver had no idea what was happening until someone called his attention to it.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  13. Jiggers
    Member Profile

    Jiggers

    I don't blame people for not wanting to get involve. Look, part of the reason is because of the way the law is today. Even if you're trying to be a good samaritan, you might be getting the short end of the stick and possibly sued yourself for intervening. Citizens don't want to have to go and be dragged though court for months and months. It's not worth it. The worst thing is that you've become a target for the thugs now, and that they know your name and even know were u live.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  14. moxilot
    Member Profile

    I'm aware of the bystander effect, but it doesn't change my shock and disgust whenever I see things like this and no one does ANYTHING. If you don't want to get physically involved, call the cops, yell, DO SOMETHING. There is no excuse for just sitting there while someone is physically assaulted in front of you.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  15. moxilot
    Member Profile

    By not acting, we allow them to be thugs and force ourselves to live in fear of them. In the split seconds before instances where I have intervened, thinking about potentially getting sued has not crossed my mind.

    Look up posts on this board that reference poor treatment of pets. There are plenty of responses stating how vile and disgusting it is to treat dogs in that manner. "how dare you yank that chain!...." even going so far as to take pictures of the perps so that everyone can see who this person is and be on the lookout..... Why can't we feel the same way when someone, a real person, is sitting next to you on the bus and another person starts kicking them in the head?

    Would you just sit there if someone was kicking a dog next to you?

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  16. Well, and as to that, moxilot, I agree with you. I do think it's a poor showing when no one does anything when someone's being attacked.

    It's a common behavior but not a universal one, and I've been places where it's more common for people to intervene. There, it seems partly due to a social expectation that if you see something going down, you do something about it.

    I'm not sure that nobody said anything. One of the girls in the video can be heard trying to justify herself to someone off camera, though the audio isn't good enough to pick up whether someone was objecting to her behavior or whether she was being preemptive.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  17. hooper1961
    Member Profile

    if i had been the boyfriend i would have defended myself aggressively by hitting the aggressors very very hard to get them to stop. he had the full legal right to defending himself.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  18. Jiggers

    This isn't about race ... it's about behavior.

    As long as we publicly tolerate this kind of behavior it will continue to escalate.

    Answering violence with violence is not the answer .. censure is.

    It's way past time to put personal back into our definition of personal responsibility

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  19. Jiggers
    Member Profile

    Jiggers

    JoB.. I think that we both know we have to still be politically correct. Crime stats don't lie. I'm tired of the BS "I'm afraid to say something attitude" that if I say something negative about a certain race, I'll look bad even though I'm right about them.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  20. Genesee Hill
    Member Profile

    Genesee Hill

    I don't think any race has a monopoly on violent behaviour.

    In looking at history of the past couple hundred years, I think most of us can find plenty of examples of violent, repulsive human behaviour by virtually every race.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  21. Jiggers
    Member Profile

    Jiggers

    I know. It is sad that even gorillas and chimpanzees treat each other better in the wild than supposedly civilized human beings do..:(

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  22. Wednesday
    Member Profile

    Humanity is the root to all evil

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  23. Methinks people who say that bystanders should have gotten more involved in this fight don't ride the mean streets of Seattle Metro very often. When a fight a breaks out in the confined space of a croweded bus, it's like a bar fight — the very last thing you want to do is pop up out of your seat and jump into the fray. The best thing you can do as a bystander is to alert the driver and/or call the cops, and that's exactly what Metro tells riders to do.

    The boyfriend did the right thing by calmly trying to separate the fighting parties and shielding his girlfriend. He did not throw any punches himself, and did not escalate the fight in any way. The only thing he could have done better is to ease his angry girlfriend gradually and carefully up to the front of the bus, where the attackers would most likely not have followed them, and where they could have alerted the driver more quickly.

    The pregnant girlfriend was a victim here, but she should not have tried to keep the fight going the way she did. After her i-Pod was snatched, she should have just calmly alerted the driver and called the cops immediately.

    BTW: Although any bus fight is scary as hell, this one looked a lot worse than it was.

    . . .

    It's way past time to put personal back into our definition of personal responsibility.

    Thank you, JoB!

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  24. Indeed, DP. It's best to avoid escalating things if you can. Kudos to DeCoste for keeping calm.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  25. hooper1961
    Member Profile

    Yea we now how appeasement works!

    DeCoste had every right to aggressively defend himself and his girlfriend and if he had given the attackers bloody noses it would have been a better lesson to the attackers to think twice than what the courts will likely dish out.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  26. jiggers..

    i just visited grandkids where the story of the day was two fights.. one over a cookie that ended in a broken bone and the other over a remark make in class that also ended in some pretty serious injuries.. tho no broken bones...

    the first involved two boys and the second two girls.

    Both occured in an upscale high school..
    and all of the students were white.

    the only difference is that neither incident made the evening news

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  27. hooper1961...

    i am guess the dads of the kids involved in this week's fracas at the grandkid's high school felt the way you do....

    not he example we want to set if we don't want public brawls on our city's buses.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  28. BigPhil
    Member Profile

    I'll echo the sentiment; nothing to do with race, everything to do with environment and attitude. If it had anything to do with race, then certainly we'd expect our own President to be violently rebuking everyone.

    Communities that allow (even encourage) this behavior are the problem, as are the 'bystander effect' civilians who refuse to act when something so wrong is happening. In fairness, from the video it's very clear who is in the wrong, but someone on the bus who only notices a few minutes in, it's not really clear who is "in the wrong." Nonetheless, I'm not sure why anyone hesitates to call 911 the moment they see assault. Any assault of any kind is a crime, regardless of whether it is a man hitting a woman, a woman hitting a woman, a man hitting a man, or a woman hitting a man. Let the cops sort it out.. the moment that girl's iPod/iPhone was lifted, the boyfriend should've called 911 or asked someone else to call 911 - or even threatened to call 911. I'd wager it would've turned out quite differently. The one *advantage* of being on the bus is the perpetrator can't just run off like they can during a street assault or robbery.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  29. Jiggers
    Member Profile

    Jiggers

    Seinfeld's last episode was about this type of behavior were a guy was getting robbed and they just stood and watched. Well.. you know the ending to that TV series. There is a real law written about not helping someone else out. Maybe Seattle needs to implement this law too.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  30. I encourage any of you who think this is an isolated happening on a Metro bus take a few more bus rides outside of the commute downtown or around here in WS.

    Spend a few hours on the 7, or on the "A" Rapid Ride line (the old 174 route), the 358 where this assault happened, or a number of other routes. You'll see bullying, bad behavior, assaults, gang activity, robberies, drug dealing and thefts.
    Everyday.

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  31. AHexpat
    Member Profile

    AHexpat

    Jiggers, I wish I could say cool racist stuff to people and not be afraid of being called a racist too. They should stop any bus that runs through the "hood" at the borders to the "real" West Seattle, pull off all of the people you don't like, right? Don't forget to keep your head down and not make any eye contact with the poors or browns next time you scurry into Proletariat PIzza.

    On all of the forum topics about the guy spray painting homophobic graffiti, I don't recall anyone attempting to link the crime to his race, why is it different with these girls?

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  32. In one of his posts above, I think Jiggers is referring to the "Good Samaritan Law."

    Good Samaritan laws mean different things in different jurisdictions, but they generally don't mean that bystanders have to do something to intervene in a fight, offer roadside assistance to accident victims, etc.

    Here's the Wikipedia summary:

    Good Samaritan laws are laws or acts protecting those who choose to serve and tend to others who are injured or ill. They are intended to reduce bystanders' hesitation to assist, for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death.

    Seattle has a Good Samaritan law, which was passed this year. It's targeted specifically at drug overdose cases and partially shields from prosecution for "possession" those drug users — especially heroin users — who report an overdose.

    http://tinyurl.com/wa-good-samaritan

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  33. Garden_nymph
    Member Profile

    Garden_nymph

    JimmyG,
    I'm guessing you're not the new marketing rep hired to increases Metro ridership?!

    Posted 1 year ago #         
  34. BBGuest
    Member Profile

    BBGuest

    If you are afraid for whatever reason, THIS WORKS. Where others are in earshot, move away speaking loudly. PRETEND you have a bluetooth whether you do or you do not. Don't take the time it might take to call 911 and wait for them to answer. Just start talking!

    Here is an example: while walking my dog at night I saw some suspicious activity, a car parked with people inside, and slow moving car coming up along side of me, on the wrong side of the street.

    "I am on the corner of ..... and ...." loud and clear enough for people to hear me, with my hand up to my ear the whole time,pretending the police were listening intently.

    If the situation warrants, and is safe enough for you, also pretend to take pictures and call whatever authority applies to what is going on.

    This situation was 4 minutes? It would probably take 911 that long to answer and go through their questions! Moving away from the situation is very important of course. Protect yourself, then protect others.

    Posted 1 year ago #         

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