Got a little unnerved today on public transportation

[kimbutgar]

I was working downtown today in San Francisco and took the underground street car home. I was reading my book and then I heard someone kind of yelling crazy stuff. When the street car got I my stop I noticed the crazy screamer was a small older black man holding a backpack. A bunch of us got off at the underground station and the crazy man also did. He was holding his backpack like he had a gun in it ready to pull out. The majority of us were woman of different ages and nationalities. We all went to get on the elevator and saw the guy coming towards us. It was if the air was sucked out of the elevator and you could feel the fear (including me) one woman jumped out of the elevator and started running up the stairs. He screamed to her "you better run"! I was in the back of the elevator and at the last minute the guy turned away from the elevator door and started back towards the train tracks and the elevator door closed. We all let out a sigh of relief in different languages. Upstairs everyone got out of the elevator quickly and hoped the guy wasn't coming up the stairs with his menacing backpack. I wanted to report it to the station master about the guy but the booth was empty.

It is disgusting to live in this society nowadays that you live in fear of some crazy asshole threatening you with a gun like action. I try to be brave but today I was so scared of getting shot in liberal San Francisco.

[upaloopa]

1. I drive to work between Santa Maria and Santa

Barbara and there are always crazy drivers trying to pass you or trying to control where you go by blocking the lanes. I think that some if them probably have a gun in the car. They could get into a road rage and start shooting. There is no where we are safe anymore.

[RKP5637]

6. Some drive along trying to provoke an incident. It's sport for them. I've had a couple try to engage

me into something and pointing their finger at me like they had a gun and then sped off.

[Hortensis]

24. Maybe it'll get better as you reach middle age or something. I was an appraiser

in Southern California for years, driving as far up the coast as Santa Barbara and down north of San Diego, but mostly working in town from very wealthy neighborhoods to high-crime ghettos, and this stuff seldom happened to me. I drove to dance music, too, swinging from lane to lane to get around slower cars because I had places to go.

Oh, and I am female, should have mentioned that first because it certainly made a difference in the high-crime neighborhoods. Young male appraisers were fairly often challenged as outsiders in those places, and I never was. Just lots of curious looks.

[TeddyR]

2. The last killing on the DC metro

Was a couple of months ago. A young criminal stabbed and beat to death an innocent subway rider during the day in full view of a number of other riders, who were unarmed and too scared to intervene. Many of the riders were older and didn't think they were capable of confronting the murderer. If that had been my son or daughter -- who are about the same age as the victim -- being killed in broad daylight I would hope that the other riders would have been carrying a firearm and intervened, and that my child would still be alive.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

8. I would want the same.

[jeff47]

15. And when they missed and hit the people at the other end of the car? (nt)

[beevul]

18. Certain that shooting would be required, are you? N/T

[jeff47]

20. Why do you think waving a gun would have stopped him?

The attacker was having a psychotic episode. Why do you think waving a gun around would suddenly cure that?

[Marr]

25. So your argument is...

Human beings are sometimes insanely violent, so they need easy access to guns.

?

[ileus]

3. You shouldn't be required to be a victim.

[RKP5637]

4. I've met some crazies before riding public transportation. Nothing like this, but I've had crazies

screaming at me before out of the blue. They used to ride the trains on an all day pass. What happen to you is scary, really scary. We have some really whacked out people for whatever reason. Problem is getting them the help they need, the process, the costs and often they do not even know they are off.

IMO we seriously neglect mental health in this country along with a bunch of things. Far too often our taxes dollars and resources feed the MIC. MIC, Inc. = $$$$$'s for the investors and the rest, as the US plays police force across a host of nations, while we neglect our own country. It's been awhile since in my courses, but last estimate I was given by my professor was about 25% of this country has serious enough mental health issues that at minimal they need counseling and some help.

Far too often the US solution is to throw them into private prisons for profit.

And feeding into this is the proliferation of easy guns in this country.

It's a lethal situation. Will congress do anything, given the past track record very little. I give congress about a 5% approval rating.

I bet there are a lot of similar events in this country like happen to you, but they go unreported because, generally, hopefully, they did not escalate. ... but likely one day this guy might go over the edge. Hopefully not.

[Laffy Kat]

5. Glad you're OK.

Don't know why the race of the mentally ill man was relevant to the story, though.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

7. I find it odd you should mention his skin colour.

If he'd have been white would you have mentioned his hair colour?

I think the reason his skin colour was mentioned was because people ran and scared of him just because of his skin colour and not of what might have been in his backpack.

[Dont call me Shirley]

9. Yup. Puzzling.

[Egnever]

10. Sadly I agree

The fear seems strong in the OP.

Not to say the incident didn't warrant it, I was not there so don't know. The fact she is constantly worried about getting shot by some crazy in SF though leads me to believe there is some level of irrational fear being displayed here.

[kimbutgar]

13. No I am not a fearful person, it's just the most recent incident in Oregon made me a little more

Ill at ease.

[Egnever]

14. Turn off the TV

It is making you afraid. Our society today is safer than any time in it's history but the fear is so much higher because the TV constantly drills the negative into your brain.

[Liberal_in_LA]

17. plus 1

[madokie]

11. I want to live in a more just world

Where we care for one another not live in fear of one another. I remember as a kid the world I lived in was that world where we cared for each other. Maybe it was because we lived in a poor community where we had to rely on one another, I don't know but I do know I want to go back there, to that way of living.
As I posted a few days ago, I have a right, a right to not have to live in fear of my fellow humans

I cry for what humans have become

[kimbutgar]

12. Honestly I was hesitant to report he was black usually it's a crazy white guys.

I am black and was embarrassed he was black. I see and hear crazy people in the street all the time it was because he was holding his backpack so menacingly that scared me.

That said one day Several years ago on the streetcar, I saw a white guy in camouflage pants and shirt carrying what appeared to be a gun case. He got off on Castro Street. I watched him the whole time on the train.

[Jesus Malverde]

19. Hop on the T Third Street or the 9 San Bruno or the 22 mission

Lets talk about out of control public transportation.

[Jesus Malverde]

16. Just another day on muni.

Lucky it wasn't a fight or a stabbing. Couple days ago an adult stabbed a child on muni.

Muni is a cesspool, like most public spaces in sf it's been turned over to the homeless and mentally ill. Service is terrible, the staff jaded and often unprofessional, texting while driving etc. my favorite muni story was the driver who would take his bus and drive to another town to deliver cocaine.

Given a choice of muni or walking I'd generally walk.

Cops are supposed to ride on buses and trains , when was the last time you saw one.

[snooper2]

21. Why didn't you start recording him and yell WORLDSTAR!

[displacedtexan]

22. The 311 mental health call really works in SF.

Response is always fast (under 5 minutes) and officers are always as gentle as possible when I've witnessed their interactions with distressed individuals, either on the buses, downtown, or in GG Park.

That being said, fear of being injured or killed as an innocent bystander is real. But that's a real fear anywhere, especially in cities. I moved here from the Capitol Hill neighborhood in DC.

I started attending our monthly neighborhood law enforcement community meetings, and I feel much more confident out and about alone.

[deutsey]

23. I live in a small town

and take walks every day at lunch around town. One day a few weeks ago (and it wasn't cold) this person quickly walked by me wearing something like this:



I wasn't sure what to make of it. I have never seen anything like it and as I said, it wasn't a cold or chilly day. I didn't feel threatened exactly, but it was odd and I kept an eye on him as he passed.

When he got ahead of me he slowed down and I could see him reaching into his pocket, pulling an object out. I've been practicing karate for over a decade and regularly practice self-defense against knives and guns. I've never had the need to use any of it and have never even felt the need, but I actually found myself instinctively preparing to fight and hopefully disarm this guy if he suddenly turned on me.

Fortunately, I saw that it was an iPad or something of the sort that he took out.

[JonathanRackham]

26. NYC

In NYC I was always afraid of someone pushing me in front of a subway train.

[KamaAina]

27. How did I know it was going to be Muni?