I could not believe my eyes! I also could not believe there was not an officer in sight.10
When the anonymous poster’s cousin got in the car, she told her story:
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.11
Every story like this prompts readers to tell their own stories. There were dozens of comments to the main story. This is a typical one from Chris:
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.
Over at DCist.com, they are also not in any danger of running out of stories of violence from the Metro beat. Whether it is a “huge fight” of a hundred black people, or violence on a more modest scale, they got the goods. “Stunning is the sheer number of participants in this fight,” said DCist. The site does not report the race of the participants.12
TBD.com also reports on the Metro. The big story in 2011 was when Allen Heywood was attacked in the early evening. A black mob attacked Heywood as he was reading a book waiting for a train. “Haywood was trying to transfer to the Yellow Line around 7:15 p.m. when the assault happened. He was headed home to Fort Totten after working out at Results on Capitol Hill, a gym bag slung over his shoulder and a book in his hands. As he read with his back to the station wall, ‘all of a sudden someone whacked me on the back of the head really hard,’ he recalls.” Haywood repeatedly asked the girl why she was attacking him, pleading with her to end it. That got a good laugh from other members of the mob, who laughed and “egged her on” while taking videos from their cell phones. They left him dazed and bleeding. One of the spectators who was taking video offered it to Heywood to use as evidence against his attackers, but only if he paid for it. Heywood was so upset that no one helped him that a few days later he stood outside the station holding a sign that read “I was attacked at L’Enfant metro Sunday at 7:15 pm. No one helped. Please be careful.”13
This next episode comes from TheGrio.com: “Our lives … Our World … Our stories.”
They even give you a definition: a grio is a “story teller in West Africa who maintains the oral tradition and history of a village or family.”
So you get it, right? This is a black web site from NBC News.
The headline pretty much tells the story: “Teen mob kick and punches man at metro station.” A local man, Robert Joy, was waiting for his niece when he saw a mob of black teenagers beating another teen. When he tried to call 911, they attacked him.
The teenagers knocked Joy to the ground and kicked him in the face. … Joy’s two front teeth were knocked out. He has six stitches inside his mouth, two stitches outside. His right eye is black and blue and bloody.14
Let’s head on over to Silver Spring, Maryland, just a few Metro stops away from Washington, D.C.
SILVER SPRING
Race riots. Stabbings. Gang members. That doesn’t sound like Silver Spring. It’s supposed to be a nice place where families can enjoy evenings at restaurants and strolling around the neighborhood. That’s not the way it turned out. In the summer of 2011 violence seemed to reach a crescendo.
The incident involved more than 80 people — many of them gang members — fighting for more than two hours in downtown Silver Spring, police said. One of the groups came by Metrorail, the other by bus.
It began about 10:30 p.m. July 1 when 50 to 75 teenagers and young adults — many of them members of a street gang called “88-mob” — exited Metro’s Silver Spring Station, said county police Lt. Robert Carter, a deputy commander of the Silver Spring district.15
If at this point someone told me that the largest organized crime enterprise in the country was a bunch of white guys in Washington who belonged to the Democrat party, I would not disagree.
CHICAGO
Let’s not forget Chicago. There have been tons of attacks on Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains. The head of the CTA said riders should be more aware of their surroundings. More blaming the victim.
Maybe the riders need some pamphlets on how not to anger the rioters.
In July 2011 three black teens shouted racial slurs and attempted to attack a gay man in the Chicago Millennium Station. “The teens approached the 23-year-old south suburban man in a restroom and started making fun of his hair, threatening him and hurling anti-gay comments. … The victim said he didn’t want any trouble, but when he pushed past the defendants, they followed him out onto Michigan Avenue and continued to yell insults and threats, according to the report. The victim called 911 after he saw [his attacker] drop his book bag and walk toward him with his fists clenched.”16
And here is a story about a boy in 2011 who got beat up at a train station by a group of people—and the Chicago Sun-Times actually identifies the attacker by race. The victim was a fifteen-year-old boy. He was approached by a group of seven black males. One of them had a gun and another one struck the victim. “The offender with the gun was described as a black male with a dark complexion, about 19, 6-foot-1 and 170 pounds with brown eyes and black hair in dreadlocks. The offender who struck the boy in the head was described as a black male between 15 and 18 with brown eyes and black hair, also in dreadlocks.”17
A headline from another story in 2011: Flash mobs ride CTA to commit crimes, mayhem on Near North Side. “Chicago police and Streeterville universities are warning residents and passers-by to be aware of traveling mobs of teenagers who use the CTA …”18 Better find another way to get to school or work.
PHILADELPHIA
Let’s not forget Philly. They’ve had their share of marauding teens. In 2011 a group of thirty to forty black teens attacked an El train, making the return trip from the fireworks show in Center City “the commute from hell for hundreds of Market-Frankford Line riders as a flash mob struck and robbed a passenger at 30th Street Station. … Two SEPTA Transit Police officers were stationed in the fare gate area at the mezzanine level of the station at the time of the incident. The mob was chased off without any arrests made,” even though one young lady was punched in the face and robbed of her cash.19
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Gunning Down a SEPTA Bus
And probably the absolute craziest story of this or any other chapter is when two black men open fire on a bus with an assault rifle and handgun. They allegedly were called by their friend, Penny Chapman, who was on the bus. A man supposedly threatened to turn her in to the DHS after she spanked her child. When the bus stopped, Chapman got off and “allegedly pointed out the man she wanted shot. She said ‘shoot him’ and they opened fire. And it was all caught on tape by seven SEPTA cameras.”20
SEATTLE
In 2010 a black Seattle teen was followed from a nearby mall to a bus tunnel. The perpetrators told the victim she had nice stuff and was acting white. The fifteen year old “was badly beaten … as three unarmed security guards looked on.” The teen “told investigators that she thought the men would protect her.”21
The Seattle transit security is now reviewing their protocol for security guards.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Beaten While Security Watches
BUS DRIVERS
Being a bus driver is one of the most dangerous occupations in America. If the Bureau of Labor Statistics did not water down the numbers by lumping bus drivers together with truck drivers, it might just be the most dangerous.
Every year hundreds of bus drivers are assaulte
d on the job.
In 2012 outside of Philadelphia, “Officers say three teens, ages 16 and 17, got on the bus at 52nd and Chestnut Streets. While on the bus the teens engaged in what is described as ‘rude and outlandish behavior’.”
As they were exiting the bus “one of the teens allegedly grabbed the bus driver and pulled him off the bus onto the pavement. Police say they beat the driver in the face.”22
In Kansas City, a mob of five black people were eating, drinking, and laughing on the bus. The video does not contain audio so we just might never know what was so funny before they all filed off the bus, with the last person punching the driver right in the face.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Kansas City Bus Driver Nailed
In Cleveland in October 2012, a group of black women were taunting a bus driver, threatening him, and threatening his family. The ninety-four-second video shows us how it got physical. One of the women hit the driver. And it was on: He stopped the bus. “You’re going to hell, now,” he said.23
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Bus Driver Fights Back
What came next could have come from a Mike Tyson demonstration video of how to deliver an uppercut. This is a particularly nasty punch because the force has nowhere to go except into the part of the body where it hits. The body can’t really go that far up in the air, so the head absorbs most of the damage. A jab isn’t as bad because it can be more like a push, but there was no jabbing here. The driver unhooked his seat belt, approached his tormentor, dropped his right shoulder with his hand below his waist almost in a cocking motion, then let loose with the uppercut heard and seen ’round the bus driving world.
Then he kicked her off the bus, throwing her jacket off with her. Her friends did not like that, reminding the bus driver he just hit a woman. He told them if she was going to act like a man, he was going to treat her like a man.
Then the other friends attacked him as well.24
Every bus driver in America cheered.
25
HOTLANTA
Take the MARTA? Might be faster to walk.
In 2008 looking out over his Atlanta court room, Judge Marvin Arrington could not take it anymore: After six years of dealing with murders, rapes, robberies, and home invasions, he suddenly realized 99.9 percent (of the defendants) were black. So he kicked all the white people out of the court room, then scolded the black defendants: “I simply said to the young people, ‘what in the world are you doing with your lives?’” he told Atlanta television reporter JaQuitta Williams.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Clearing the Courtroom
Some thought the judge’s actions a bit unusual. But a white Atlanta courthouse visitor thought that maybe “people of color talk more freely among themselves.” This is the face of racism today: Not the snarling caricature of Bull Connor on the streets of Selma, but the cloying “blacks are different” sympathy of Nurse Ratchet.
Four years later, there was little sign all that “free talking” did much good. Since that court-clearing episode, Atlanta has been the site of dozens of episodes of black mob violence and lawlessness—crimes that range from comical to fatal, ridiculous to outright dangerous.
Unlike most of the victims of the hundreds of episodes of racial mob violence that have erupted in more than ninety cities over the last three years, Zachary Gamble actually knew his four accused killers. Gamble was a retired Marine Sergeant living in an Atlanta suburb after serving two tours of duty in Iraq. In April 2012 he went to his alleged killer’s home for a birthday party. Witnesses say Gamble and his killers were using alcohol and drugs when, early in the morning, Gamble became belligerent and was asked to leave.
He had been telling graphic Iraq war stories.
“At some point, he texted his friend a three-word taunt” that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said was too graphic too print, then Gamble and his alleged killers had a confrontation outside in the parking lot. Gamble fell to the ground and was “punched in the face and kicked while he was lying on the ground” by the four-man mob. They left him lying unconscious in the parking lot.1
About forty minutes later, near dawn, a cab driver called 911 after she ran over Gamble’s leg. Two weeks later he was dead, his skull fractured in three places—not from the taxi, but from the beating, police said.
The four await trial.
Some mobs even have their own YouTube account to document and brag about the thug life. Such is the case with Atlanta’s “Pittsburgh Jack City Gang.”
A dozen members of the mob are seen on video beating up Brandon White when he was leaving a convenience store. Three of the gang knocked him down, punched and kicked him, and even slammed him with a tire, all while an onlooker caught it on video while repeating “no faggots in Jack City.”2
White told CNN he did not report the crime until the video went viral “because he did not want to draw attention to himself. He could not even bring himself to watch the video at first, he was so humiliated and embarrassed.” The video was released on YouTube and WorldHipHop.com, and was posted on The Smoking Gun.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Brandon White
“I was very violated,” said White. “Who’s to say they won’t come after me again … Who’s to say they won’t kill me?”3
The group of thugs even brag about “stealing necklaces, display gang signs, and refer to themselves as ‘goons.’ One man describes himself as a ‘wild dog,’ while another says, ‘I’m the Tasmanian Devil.’”4
Two of the men have been arrested and await trial.
One of Atlanta’s biggest race riots occurred in June 2010 at Screen on the Green in Piedmont Park, an outdoor movie festival. But you might not have known about it due to a lack of news coverage. That summer night, a crowd of ten thousand people was trying to watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen when the violence began.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) said “groups of marauding teens took over the event.” Atlanta city councilman told the AJC the trouble was “caused by a small group of young kids looking to cause trouble.” Witnesses at other websites had a less sanitized version of events. They described a chaotic, violent, and dangerous scene with several groups of black people—hundreds of men and women—making their way through the crowd, beating, taunting, laughing, robbing, and destroying property.5
“They started climbing all over my Jeep,” said one attendee, “and I turn around and my buddy is getting punched in the face and has blood pouring out of his nose. … We were definitely victims of a hate crime.”6
“I was there,” said a poster to the Topics.com Atlanta forum. “There were hundreds of black teens, apparently there to fight. Yelling obscenities, threatening each other, both sexes.”7
Despite dozens of witnesses reporting more than one hundred assaults, the following day police said they had a record of only one complaint. Most of the victims said there were no police to be seen there.
Several people report they were victims of anti-gay slurs and violence:
Jesse Rhodes, who is openly gay, said what happened … was an insult to the people of Midtown, including its gay residents. He lives at Post and walked to the park with a group of gay friends. While the fights and rowdy behavior broke out around them as they tried to watch “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” he and his gay friends felt very vulnerable, he said.
“We felt like sitting ducks,” he said. “They were definitely targeting gay people. One of my good friends, who is gay and works at Swinging Richards, got jumped by five people and beat up,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes added that when he was walking out of the park he was called “faggot” and other obscenities and said women at the event were also called lesbians.
“I was called a faggot. There were a couple of fights in front of Blake’s [the gay bar on 10th Street] — it was all pretty pathetic,” he said. “I was verbally discriminated against based on my sexual preference.”8
Another gay victim of violence that night posted his obs
ervations on a YouTube channel that is now private:
What happened last night (June 3) at Screen on the Green was not simply “fights” between unruly teens as the local TV stations would like their audiences to believe. These savages went apeshit and hunted down gays and lesbians to attack!
They specifically began targeting members of the LGBT community around Blake’s and along 10th St. The local news media is acting as if this were a simple scuffle and that’s totally unacceptable.
Gay people were not the only ones targeted though. All kinds of people, black, white, gay and straight were being randomly punched in the face and people were getting their windows smashed with rocks. It was like a riot in a third world country.
Despite the attempt from police, public officials, and some media outlets to downplay the racial violence, many witnesses came forward to report what they saw:
“Let’s face it. Every person causing a disturbance both on the green during the movie that I saw was black,” said another witness who posted at the Creative Loafing Forum. “Every person kicking cars, breaking windows and running in the middle of the street like a rabid animal was black. Every person who was hanging on the white guy in the jeeps car assaulting him and his passengers was black. It’s not a stereotype. It’s math. 100%.”9
One poster at the Atlanta Topix Forum who goes by The Captain said race had nothing to do with the disturbance. He claimed to have seen mob attacks before and said that “almost all have been done by gangs of white kids. It’s you dumb fracks that feel the need to harp on the race if it’s not yours.”
The Captain reflects a frequently expressed opinion on many sites that the pattern of racial-based violence should not be part of any discussion of these crimes. And that white people and Asian people commit random acts of violence all the time as well.
White Girl Bleed A Lot Page 19