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| 3 men caught fighting on CTA Red Line train. Photo: YouTube/rockhopper323. |
A violent confrontation aboard a North Side, Red Line CTA train was recently posted on YouTube.
Here's what happened....
On Friday, September 16, 2011, at approximately 11 p.m., three men lost their tempers as a CTA train approached the Sheridan "L" stop at 3940 North Sheridan Road.
According to an eyewitness, two black men were playing a radio and disturbing the other passengers.
When the men refused to stop playing their music, a white male CTA passenger, who was possibly intoxicated, grabbed their radio and threatened to throw it from the train.
That's when the two black passengers attacked the white passenger, said YouTube user rockhopper323, who is also responsible for uploading the video to YouTube.
In the beginning of the two-minutes and 19-seconds long video, the two black commuters can be seen pummeling the white passenger in the head and face with their fists - leaving him with a bloody nose.
Within seconds, the escalating brawl spilled into the train's narrow aisle.
Several passengers tried to escape the violence by fleeing their seats.
For more details, watch the video below.
I hate this city. Look at all of those "men" running away. At some point a failure to intervene has to be criminal.
ReplyDeleteI plan to move before the G-20 summit in May.
chicago used to be a great city. especially the north side. wtf happened?
ReplyDeleteWhat happened? People became more interested in catching it on video than actually helping, that's what. Even "security" at the end casually strolls up to the fight instead of trying to stop it.
ReplyDeleteI know there are still good people left in Chicago and elsewhere - we need to stop accepting this violence and ignorance all around us and take a stand. I personally love Chicago and refuse to let guys like these run me out of here.
Why can the white people stand up against these animals. All those men and no one grabs these animals and shoves them to the ground. If white people keep playing the victim, black animals will keep abusing you. Stand up and fight.
ReplyDelete.....this is why chicago sucks we allow ourselves to be distracted by race. Allowing the terrible politicians to keep digging into our pockets....its not a race thing its a politics thing look into it
DeleteThis is why I NEVER take the red line, especially after dark.
ReplyDeleteWell, if I'm reading this correctly, the white guy wasn't exactly innocent. Article does not clearly explain what is meant by "disturbing" other riders. Was the noise just disturbing or were they harassing others? Regardless, blacks behaving badly on the red line is the norm. Taking 2 against 1 is just stupid...he should not have started with them. This is why my happy white self will not set foot on red line past 8 PM.
ReplyDeleteThe redline is really the ghetto express and a dangerous place to be. Wonder how all those camera's and all that money the CTA spend on them is working out???
ReplyDeleteWhat a bunch of cowards all those passengers were. Apathy is alive and well in the city of Chicago. How pathetic and a complete disgrace that all those passengers did NOTHING! I didn't see ANYONE on the video use their phone to call for help. What about notifying the conductor? Sure hope if I ever need help there will be some REAL men around.
Whether that white guy was innocent or not is totally besides the point. What this video shows is nothing but a bunch of cowards and chicken shits!
From what I understand, Towanda, there are no longer "conductors" on the trains although they used to have them. There are now just drivers, and that's all they do.
ReplyDeleteA few problems with intervening:
ReplyDelete1) How do you know that the people fighting (all three, not just the black guys) don't have a weapon on them?
2) If I intervene, and nobody else joins me, now I'M in a 1 on 2 situation, bc the first guy already got his butt kicked.
3) Liability - I have something to lose - I'm a professional with a family, a great job, money, etc. There is no reason to think that, if I intervened and actually DID kick one of these guy's butts, that they won't promptly bring legal action against me. If police show up when this fight is going on, everybody will be arrested. I'm not putting my family at risk because some drunkass decided to pick a fight he couldn't win on the train.
I do have a FOID & a firearm, and I do carry it on the rare occasions I take public transport at night. However, the only time I would brandish it is if I felt that someone's life was in danger, and I would think twice if it was a total stranger who picked the fight.
@Big Poppa, I am assuming you would use your phone to call 911 though, right? Didn't look like to me ANY of those riders even did that.
ReplyDeleteBig Poppa has three very valid points, especially the first. WAY too many of the street scum are packing firearms to make heroics a valid option for an unarmed bystander. I'd have to be pretty sure I could take the bastard(s) out with one punch/kick/blow. I'm far from a big gun guy, but I think that not knowing which seemingly cowed sheep might go all Terminator on them would be a real deterrent to the thuggocracy.
ReplyDeleteBig poppa September 20, 2011 11:57 AM ”I'm not putting my family at risk because some drunkass decided to pick a fight he couldn't win on the train.”
ReplyDeleteWell put. I’ve written before about intervening on the behalf of strangers. Bottom line is: I am not going to put myself at risk for no good reason. And this does not qualify as a good reason.
There may not be conductors on the train but there is an emergency button, and I've never seen a driver ignore it.
ReplyDeleteI've basically stopped riding the train because of things like this. Even an uninterested bus driver seems to keep most people from misbehaving. Drunk or not, I applaud that guy for saying something. Most people are too afraid to and that's what the rude thugs are counting on.
PASS HB148-CC now and at least give US a fighting chance.
ReplyDeleteKristina September 21, 2011 6:20 AM ”Drunk or not, I applaud that guy for saying something. Most people are too afraid to and that's what the rude thugs are counting on.”
ReplyDeleteThat is easy to say when you are not the one getting your ass kicked.
It is interesting that many of the comments that are calling for violent confrontation are (presumably) from women who are trying to shame men into getting involved in a situation where they could possibly get killed.
Come on people, there is an emergency button in every car...push it. Plus, I don't see anyone calling 911. Those are 2 ways to help without a confrontation. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to do JUST those 2 things. But I guess it's more important to get the video on youtube.
ReplyDelete@ Tonawanda - With all due respect to you & CPD, calling 911, unfortunately, won't do anything in a situation like this. The best outcome from a 911 call is that police will be at a station when this train stops. Unfortunately, the likelihood of that is very small - CPD is undermanned, and cannot possibly be everywhere at once.
ReplyDeleteThat's why, though I legally own a firearm (have a FOID, went through the required classroom & range training, and register my piece with CPD), I do consciously choose to break IL law and carry it concealed when I'm going to be in certain situations. The risk that I somehow get busted for carrying illegally is far outweighed, in my mind, by the benefit that I will get if I'm directly threatened by someone like these two.
In this particular situation, it seems highly unlikely that the police would be able to appear anywhere near in time to help the victim. But if they are called, and they do get to whatever station the victim got off at, and can find him before he leaves for home, they will surely write up a nice police report!! Which may or may not help getting his insurance to cover his damages, IDK, I'm not an insurance guy.
There was a truly CRAZY guy 6ft 4 300lb in a freakin ski mask making gun motions at me on the CTA platform, of course on a day when i was carrying two bags of groceries......he followed me when I boarded the train, there were a lot of women with a large group of kids...so i moved to the emergency button behind someone, train was Full...and spoke into it, telling her Call the Police Now, there is a guy threatening to shoot......I was not yelling, cos I was trying not to enrage the CRAZY GUY....I also didn't want all the little kids on the train to start screaming...their moms had seen him and figured it out and were bringing them closer and had followed me moving away from him as much as possible.......and the conductor just screamed at me thru the speaker...that I would have to speak up...and to stop 'playing with the button" (FWC...!!)
ReplyDeleteI was not looking to enrage the CRAZY giant who was stalking from carriage to carriage and had focused on me at that point...others had noticed and we were moving away from him EnMasse....the conductor would not listen, stopped the train and just kept yelling through that thing....eventually she walked slowly towards our train carriage and CRAZY man realised this could lead to cops, and he got off and exited the station. the female conductor was stupid, ignorant and worthless, it was one of the most scary experiences on the train ever and there were many witnesses. The female conductor just said "oh I didnt realise" ITS A FKN EMERGENCY BUTTON WHAT DID SHE THINK WAS HAPPENING?????
Keep filming. Only until there is an archive of this animal behavior, will there ever be an argument for their removal. If it aint on utube, it didn't happen. Show me a video of the racial roles reversed - there aren't any. Keep filming. Keep filming.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous #18, well, at least you tried. Too bad the train driver was stupid BUT, at least she stopped the train and walked back, which made godzilla get off the train.
ReplyDelete@Big Poppa,
I get what you're saying and good for you for doing what the ghetto thugs do everyday day & night...carry illegal weapons.
Tonawanda - there is a big difference between them & me.
ReplyDeleteI legally own my weapon, but peeiodically choose to carry it in an illegal manner.
Most likely, the extremely high majority of weapons used in crimes here are NOT legally owned.
My weapon is legal, the thugs who are reported to be involved in nightly shootings & robberies in which weapons are brandished? Those are the illegal weapons.