No Peace on the St. Louis Metro

I've lived a charmed life in terms of avoiding street crime in what's considered to be one of the most crime-ridden cities in the US. The only time I've ever had a gun pointed at me was by law enforcement, and no, I hadn't done anything but that doesn't stop a swaggering, gun-happy cop from jumping near-disastrously to a wrong conclusion. It was a misunderstanding. Five minutes later, he took the cuffs off and I was free to go--and change my underwear. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was decades ago (and in the military. The cop was really a Master-at-Arms.)

On Tuesday, I had a brush with street crime. I had a first-row seat witnessing a bus driver getting beaten, though I came a little late to the show. (I never saw what started it.)

This was the result:

From my own dumb-phone camera, which I never used. Proves I was there.

It happened at about 5:30 on the way to my writers' group. I just got off the train and walked down from the platform to transfer to one of the buses. I was late and thought I missed my connection, but as I reached the bottom, two buses pulled in, the 32 and the 57. I wanted the 32.

I walked toward my bus past the 57 and heard somebody cry out, "He's beating the bus driver!" I turned my head and had a clear first-row view into the open door of a guy holding the bus driver in headlock and beating him in the face viciously.

Everyone else had disembarked. At the time, I thought this was a crime of passion because this assailant was enraged. The driver was still buckled in the seat, while the bus drifted forward out of control. It jumped the curb, rolled over and destroyed a bus stop shelter, which shattered the windshield. (Refer to picture.) The one woman in the shelter wisely ran for the hills as it bore down. The bus came to a halt with the tingle of massive broken glass and the screech of twisting metal.

I realized then this was big: thousands of dollars in damage and a few felonies in size. (Not Avengers big, but big for my life.) I ran up there next to the door again, and the assailant, who was in a white shirt with vertical stripes despite news reports to the contrary, was still beating the bus driver, undaunted by the devastation.  

I was the closest one to the door. I glanced around, and nobody else was moving. I wanted like nothing else to stand there agape like I was also in an audience, but I was afraid the bus driver would get critically injured or killed. The bus driver was three decades older than the attacker.

And I was only two decades older. I'm not a fighter. I'm out of my prime, and I'm not trained in the least. And in those seconds, I swear I tried to find any excuse to do nothing, but I came up empty. I stepped into the bus, and I said, "Stop!"

He did! He turned to me and he said, "Get off."

I think I flinched, but then held and said, "No! You stop."

He stepped away from the driver and into the aisle, not really closer to me, but it gave him more room. I watched for a punch or a weapon, but none came. His hands were by his sides like mine. "Get off!" he repeated. 

I held my ground and said, "No, you stop beating him."

I sensed other people coming up behind me. I used that. I said, "You want to face everyone here?" "You want to fight everyone behind me, too?"*

I glanced at the bus driver. His face was bleeding in multiple places. He was stunned and likely concussed. Someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me out of the front line. I was grateful. Apparently someone saw I was outside my element. Lastly, I gestured to the bus driver and said to the assailant, "You made your point." A weird thing to say, because I didn't know what point the attacker was making, or even if the bus driver knew. I just wanted to perform any Jedi trick I could to make the guy stop.  

To my great relief and surprise, it worked; the assailant then threw in the towel. He just walked off the bus, past everyone. He went up to the Metrolink. That's what everyone else said, anyway, but with him out of the picture, my attention was on the bus driver. The guy who got in after me first asked if anybody knew how to the bus out of gear, because the driver was too out of it. He was a 66 yar old man. Then the other guy asked if anybody had any water. I volunteered mine and forgot to get the bottle back. The police arrived and I gave them statement, my name and number, and then I walked the last half-mile to my writers' group.  

I knew going in that I might have ended up seriously injured or even dead on the outside chance. As I said, I couldn't find an excuse to stay out of it, and just move on with my conscience, or to stand and watch that degree of battery. Afterward, I realized the only weapon I had was my backpack standing against a guy who was also twenty years younger than me.

However, I didn't touch the perp, didn't raise a hand to him, I made no threatening gesture, and didn't insult him. I simply told him to stop and that he had done enough. He waited for me to do something that would let him aim his rage at me, and I never did. I'm not pacifist by any means, but I couldn't trust my fighting "skills" to do anything but piss him off. I do know better than to make a violent situation worse.

No, I didn't capture him, but they already have a picture of the guy out to public:

Striped shirt? Clean cut? That's what I remembered.

 I know when in the action, that screen cap was taken. That was when he backed away from the bus driver and into the aisle, right as other people came on the bus. From there, he left. 

News stories said that bus was a shuttle to bring drivers to their next routes. Maybe that's how it would be used, but it was a regular bus and when it pulled in, it was the 32 bus with passengers on it. Usually, the 32 turns into the 57 and then goes into West county.

The news stories also said that this was a mugging. The assailant demanded all the drivers' transfers. Why you ask? There's actually a black market on bus transfers. They sell them (and knockoffs of them) for a dollar each at bus stops. When I get off the bus, sometimes people will ask me if I have a transfer that I'm done with. That surprised me that somebody got mugged for transfers. That's a really petty thing to beat somebody over.

I do wonder, though. The perp seemed very pissed. I thought it was a crime of passion, like the driver insulted him some way. Looking at his expression up there, I wonder if the assailant was on drugs. Or maybe that was my Jedi mind trick working on him.

On or off drugs, it's a pretty dumb motive to commit battery on a security camera. With the property damage and public endangerment, this guy could be facing twelve years.

PS, they say eyewitness testimony is notoriously inaccurate. Now that a security picture of him has been released, I'm surprised I thought he was wearing a white vertically striped shirt. I also didn't remember the whiskers. [I described him as clean cut.]

UPDATE 5/7/15 5:01 P.M. The head security at Metro has thanked me for stopping the assault. He saw me do something clever that I thought was stupid at the time: I told the guy he'd have fight everyone behind me. That where his attitude changed; that's what stopped him.

It was metaphorical, that is, total bullshit. I exaggerated to say the least: other people weren't coming on that bus. One other person was all I had at most. I meant everyone behind me was outraged, too, but they were as battle-ready as I was, or less.

And it worked! The moral of the story: when you're in danger and have nothing else, just shovel bullshit as hard as you can.

Epilogue: The bus driver suffered a fractured mandible, a damaged eye, and his lips were split badly enough to require stitches.

They have a suspect in custody. I won't put a link to it because he's innocent until proved guilty. I don't want to know who he is until he's convicted. With the security cam, I doubt they'll need my testimony.

* Yes, I misquoted myself. That's why I made a horrible journalist.