It's hard out there for a pedestrian

[trochee]

This morning on campus, I catch the 68 as a lazy shortcut to the lab. I hop on at Campus Parkway, and we take the turn onto campus. After the first campus stop, we pull into the intersection, and then stop.

I look up. There is a blank-faced, defiant man-child standing in front of the bus, doing a stare-down with the driver. The driver waves him on, but he stands there, refusing to move. The man is in his early twenties, wearing REI-style clothes ("active" and expensive), blond, blue eyes, no beard, not obviously intoxicated. "Let me on the bus!" he shouts.

"No!" says the driver, clearly and distinctly. The driver honks suddenly, and the guy jumps, but doesn't leave his position. P., an acquaintance of mine, cycles by and exchanges words with the man. The passengers grow restless; one stands and walks to the front and asks the driver to be let off. The driver refuses ("I'm not opening the door right now."). I start to sketch the guy, since this story is already shaping up.

The driver calls the supervisors on his radio. "I'm being held hostage here -- I can't move the bus while he's standing in front of it." The man shifts his gaze a little, and angrily, defiantly, crosses the street, now standing in the middle of the street. He starts shouting at the driver: "you're acting like a child!"

"You can't stand like that to stop the bus! there are rules here!" says the driver out the window, and pulls the bus through the intersection. Man-child, furious, standing in the middle of the street as we turn right past him, leans back and punches the bus.

"He broke the window!" I hear a passenger say, and indeed he has spangle-fractured the window just behind the driver. The driver pulls the bus a hundred yards farther down Stevens Way, and calls again on the radio. The police are notified, and we stop at the medical center to wait for them. Nearly all the passengers get off the bus, and -- being all of two blocks from the lab -- I tell the driver I'll talk to the cops and tell them what I saw.

I do -- I see a happy gleam in the officer's eye when she sees my page full of sketches and dialog snippets. ("White, about six feet, blond, 160-180 pounds", I say. "Good witness," she says, like I'm a puppy.)

I end up taking a drive with the officer (in the front seat, not the back) and she drives me past the guy, who is now standing, hat off, cuffed, at the stop in front of Meany -- not ten yards from his site-of-punching. without his hat, he has chin-length blond hair, and I tell the officer that I'm not sure without the hat. She gets out of the car "don't get out of the car!" and asks the three (! large!) cops standing with the guy to put his hat on again, and we drive past again. Yep, it's him.

And that's how I got a ride to the lab from the UWPD. Even though I'm pretty sure how I feel about anybody who attacks the bus (I'm indignant at them, and a little scared -- anybody who attacks a twelve-ton motorized vehicle with their hand has self-control and self-worth questions) I feel a little funny about cooperating with cops.

Comments

[caracola.livejournal.com]

Considering some girl on campus was just given a subdural hematoma or something yesterday morning by some wack job, you definitely did the right thing.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

thank you. I didn't even consider that aspect of what I was doing, but you're totally right -- violence is not to be tolerated.

[lapartera.livejournal.com]

I agree -- helping to get him off the streets is a good idea. This guy sounds obviously out of control and could hurt a lot more than the window of a bus. Of course, how long will he stay off? Not long, I'd guess.

In a just society we wouldn't be worried about cooperating with the police. They would clearly be on the side of the people. I would share your anxiety in a situation like this in our real world, however. Meanwhile, watch your back, dear heart.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

thanks! not feeling too anxious. I do hope i don't have to testify in this whole mess, though.

I think he's a student at the UW, which perversely makes me more comfortable with fingering him -- he's got class, race and gender on his side when dealing with cops. Had it been a random mentally-ill homeless guy I think that would have been walking him into a whole lot of trouble. As it is, perhaps this guy will get help.

Turning over whitey to the man

[https://id.mayfirst.org/dkg/ (from livejournal.com)]

I think he's a student at the UW, which perversely makes me more comfortable with fingering him -- he's got class, race and gender on his side when dealing with cops.

I think this is pretty right on, however perverse it might be. Going up against the cops sucks, but facing institutionalized prejudice takes it to a whole other level. Doesn't sound like he's going to face those challenges.

In his position, it sounds like he's got the opportunity for this to be a wake-up call instead of a permanent stigma. Whether he listens to the wake-up call or just hits the snooze button is another question entirely, of course. (and given his predilection for not listening and hitting things...)

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

um, is subdural hematoma a fancy term for "punch in the face" ?

[caracola.livejournal.com]

More like "conk on the head"... (blood on the brain or a bruised brain, I think)

[trochee.livejournal.com]

it means "internal bleeding in the brain" and yeah, usually because of punch-in-the-head.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

oh, lovely.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yeah, it's pretty freakin' scary. here's that story.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

oh great.
i hope it's not the capitol hill killer.
they better find that dude.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I hadn't considered that those two incidents might be related. Seems not impossible...

[champignon.livejournal.com]

Wow. Now that is a great story. I can't believe he punched the bus.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

I know! It was just a weird man-child-takes-stand story when he was staring down the bus driver (like that Tiananmen Square picture, except he was, you know, wrong), until he punched the bus.

Then I started taking notes even faster, because I knew the police report was coming.

[caracola.livejournal.com]

I took a class on Vikings through the Scandinavian dept a few years ago. In this class was this very outspoken Vikingesque-cum-psycho student who was adamant that the Vikings had populated North America. (I think he had some sort of warped biblical skin-head western-centered world population theory.) When he openly challenged the professor and the professor calmly cited current research, the guy stormed out and threw a desk.

Manchildren (Menchildren?) on campus. HIGHLARIOUS!

[trochee.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention that -- this quarter's Winter TA workshop is on Violence in the Classroom, and even non-TAs are invited. I got the invitation right after I walked into the lab after this whole incident, so I told the organizers "I'm in."

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

Wow.
There is a lesson in "do not expect your day to be a certain way."
Ha. Crazy.
Did the guy see you giving the eyewitness report ?
Wouldn't want him backlashing at you.
I still think you did the right thing ( though obviously the bus driver could have identified the guy) though ~!
It's really sad to see how angry people are and how they will lash out at anything ( a tiger bus !!!)

[trochee.livejournal.com]

There is a lesson... indeed! I told the officer that, actually. "I did not expect to ride to the lab in a cop car -- thanks for making it the front seat and not the back."

I don't think the guy saw me ID him -- I gave the report when we were at the next bus stop, and I only saw the dude again when the cop drove me by him twice to make the ID. I think I might wear a different hat for a while though.

The driver couldn't go back to make the ID because he had to take the bus and continue the route.

And yes, it is kinda sad to see how angry and freaked out this guy must have been in order to lash out like that.

[boobirdsfly.livejournal.com]

I know I already don't take out the trash... but lately I am even more afraid to.
:(

[trochee.livejournal.com]

that I am happy to help with. But even I don't like to take the trash out in the dark.

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

Wow. Very weird. I agree that it's a good thing that you were able to help get him off the street, and hopefully get him some help. (Everything else aside, walking out into traffic is really not a smart thing to do, and if he behaves like that with any frequency, he's lucky he hasn't gotten run over yet.)

Your last comment about feeling funny about cooperating with cops made me think about how different my "default" attitude about police is from some other people's. I definitely know that there are plenty of cops who abuse their authority and aren't in the job for the good of the community... but I grew up surrounded by a bunch of examples of the good ones (my dad and a handful of long-time family friends started their careers as cops and moved into federal law enforcement) and I still tend to think of the cops as the good guys at least as much as the potential bad guys.

I hope the rest of your day was less eventful, or at least only eventful in good ways.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

The UW cops don't freak me out much, but I have a child-of-hippies knee-jerk distrust of The Man. (see the mention from dkg below -- my brother.)

[tulip-tree.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I sort of got that impression. :) I just think it's interesting that we have such different knee-jerk reactions... I don't really think either of us is totally right or wrong, because it's a lot more complicated than "cops bad" or "cops good." Just interesting.

yikes!

[https://id.mayfirst.org/dkg/ (from livejournal.com)]

Wow, that's a pretty crazy person. I understand the frustration at seeing the bus and not being able to get on, but yeah: self-worth and self-control issues in a big way.

I hear your about reluctance with the cops too, though. As you say, violence is just not an OK response to the frustrations of the modern world. But the cops are also some of the biggest perpetrators of violence (including senseless, "i'm bigger than you" testosterone-driven beatings, tasings, etc.). Is it good to hand over a guy with obvious rage issues to a group of people with a demonstrated history of ? OTOH, is it good to just let a guy like that go without any sort of reality check that his actions have consequences?

I'm not sure i would have done what you did, but i'm also not sure it wasn't the best thing, given the circumstances. What a terrible situation. And now all the bus riders are late, to boot!

I hope that guy gets counseling.

[xaosenkosmos.livejournal.com]

I'd feel no compunctions about cooperating there. The dude was clearly Not Right. He needs someone to force him into at least anger management courses. And, if you didn't ID him, the driver or someone else would.

Even if he was likely to be discriminated against, fingering him now isn't so bad, since you're not giving a sworn (ie: admissible) statement. The cops can quote you admissibly, but you yourself aren't really talking. Once you're asked to do that, then you need to step back and think about it more. I'd try to find some way to know what charges he'd face, and what the consequences of those could be before swearing anything.

Anyway, point being: you did the right thing, and you've got some wiggle room if you're called to do more than you feel comfortable doing in the future. I can't say any more there without inciting perjury, so i'll leave it at that ;^)

[blackwingedboy.livejournal.com]

That's an amazing story, and I'm proud of you for stepping up and being a citizen. It may seem like a small think to protect a bus from being hit, but you may have just been instrumental in preventing this guy from doing other, far worse things with his anger.

I also think that you are writing a comic that revolves around bus riding. You've in effect asked the creative gods for ideas and events. I think you are getting them :)

Still that image of the guy, seems kinda don quixote-esque, eh? :)

[trochee.livejournal.com]

yeah -- this one is a longer story -- possibly more than one page. I really need to find more time to make comics...

[erg.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if he's mentally ill, he sounds just simply drunk. I don't have a problem with your stepping forward to do the ID. We don't know if he's got a history, or not. Lots of really bad people do something extraordinarily dumb and this is how we find out. Amazing how many people with warrants out for them will do something like this.

What it does do, is confirm the driver's story so they're not in trouble. I do street outreach, I've seen cops do both good and bad things, even when dealing with me directly, I don't think your distrust is misplaced, but... if they can't "solve" the case because no one will ever come forward, then we're part of what makes the system broken right from the start. In this case it seems like they tried to keep your identity secret (depending on if the guy could see you when they stopped to talk to their partners about the hat) so we can hope they were on the ball and your little commuter bus gets a three line mention in the newspaper blotter, so folks know, hit a bus, go to community court. :)

How'd the sketches come out?

[trochee.livejournal.com]

the sketches were pretty lame, really. but i'm still working my way up to making a full-page cartoon about the thing. it's a bit larger-scale than my current efforts.

So far the little i've been able to figure out has the guy up on vandalism charges, which seems about right.