Second Murder at Five Points Station in the same week (Atlanta: home, neighborhood)

[testa50]

I ride the southline at all hours of the day about four times a week. If you're coming from the airport, you can just get in the railcar at the top of the escalator and it will have a clump of tourists and travelers, while the other railcars will start out empty and then fill up as you move north.

The worst looking section of the line is between Lakewood and Garrett. Once you get south of Lakewood, it is more or less okay. From East Point on down is fine, even pretty at times. There are some beautiful houses in the area if you bother to look.

But everything always looks sketchier from trains, wherever in the world you are.

Also, DC had an attack on its Metro recently that has gotten more publicity:

Attacked transit passenger says no one helped him - CNN

[lookup138]

Wow. I just read the CNN article and I am wondering when will the "madness" stop?! The attackers were children 12 yr old boy and 15 year old girl? Gosh that's ridiculous. I would have said don't take any form of mass transit and just drive but that doesn't help the problem.

Just a month or so ago here there was a case of road rage between two drivers, was it on I-85 S? During AM rush hour one of the two drivers started shooting at the other, in the midst of rush hour!!! What would have happened if an innocent driver was struck by one of the bullets??!!!

So you could very well avoid the train and drive to where you need to go. However, there is no safeguard against road rage between angry drivers. I think the best thing for commuters driving, walking, or on mass transit is to be alert, carry mace or something to protect yourself. In my case it might be a 357 magnum! Sheesh...

[testa50]

FWIW the CNN article is about an incident in Washington, DC that happened the same day as our murder.

[DTL3000]

Originally Posted by society619

Riders Concerned About Safety After 2nd MARTA Killing - Atlanta News Story - WGCL Atlanta

MARTA's Police Chief Wanda Dunham issued this statement:

"First and foremost, I want to express our deepest condolences to the victim's family.

MARTA is an extremely safe system and has one of the lowest crime rates when compared to the local jurisdictions within our service area and transit systems of similar size. The MARTA Police Department aggressively patrols the system every day deploying uniformed and plainclothes officers in stations, trains and buses. We utilize multi-layered strategies and special operations teams to maintain a secure environment.

MARTA's highest priority is the safety of our system. In spite of our best efforts, crime knows no boundaries. MARTA is not immune from random acts of violence, albeit a very rare occurrence. We are committed to continuing to deploy all of our resources to prevent these incidents from occurring. However, when an incident does occur, MARTA police are immediately on the scene, as they were today, to assist customers and bring any perpetrators to justice.

Reading this just makes me angrier about the situation. I know CYA is standard for incidents like this but this reads like "What do you expect us to do about it?" It does not inspire any confidence in me towards the MARTA police or their leadership.

I find it hard to believe that MARTA is one of the safer transit systems with at least 3 murders at their stations within a year in addition to incidents involving people being struck and killed on the tracks. MARTA police do not "agressively patrol the system." Anybody who has ridden it more than once will realize that. The two incidents that happened last week seem to have been easily preventable and inexcusable.

I no longer have any sympathy for MARTA and its constant budget woes if this continues to be their response to things like this. They constantly shoot themselves in the foot as far as operations and safety and then come begging the public for sympathy.

[Ticatica]

I'll offer my 2 cents as a tourist who's visited and used MARTA trains the entire stay. I've routinely ridden Philly's subways, NYC esp. to Harlem and the Bronx and Jersey's urban train lines Path and Patco literally all times of day and overnight. There is a certain something different about the douchebags that make trouble on MARTA trains. I saw a few groups of people being provocative and outrageous over the weeks. I got to see that for myself when two guys got pretty loud and insulting esp. toward an older professional lady. I didn't like and told them and it became a big heated incident. The lady tried to disuade me from coming to her defense for my safety. But I didn't like that this foolishness escalated for about 15 minutes with no one checking them. It's not cool to bully a retired teacher for chrissakes! I may be a relatively small woman but I'm not going to just stand by, regardless.

It's not something I've seen in those other towns and I think it's because we have more security (even in Jersey) and people seem more likely to stick up for isolated easy targets like her. It would be good if Atlantans backed each other up a bit more across racial and economic lines.

[jsimms3]

^^^Exactly. That sounds like the whole MARTA girl incident (you can Youtube that). Nobody defended that poor lady. Also, when I was attacked on MARTA, I was the only white person on the platform, and there were probably 30 bystanders (all black and 1 Hispanic) and nobody defended me at all. The cops made me go back down to the platform to try to ID the perps, and obviously they were gone (MARTA cops really really suck) and of course nobody was willing to help or come forward. I had the gut feeling it was because I was white (that and the perps kept shouting white boy, etc etc).

Also, SEPTA and the New York subways go through nice residential areas, too. Therefore they get used more by choice riders who choose to ditch their nice car for the trains. MARTA goes through literally only ghettos to the airport and 3 commercial districts. It does not service middle class and upper class neighborhoods (partly because those areas block MARTA from coming in, which is a shame).

[MikeandIke27]

Originally Posted by jsimms3

^^^Exactly. That sounds like the whole MARTA girl incident (you can Youtube that). Nobody defended that poor lady. Also, when I was attacked on MARTA, I was the only white person on the platform, and there were probably 30 bystanders (all black and 1 Hispanic) and nobody defended me at all. The cops made me go back down to the platform to try to ID the perps, and obviously they were gone (MARTA cops really really suck) and of course nobody was willing to help or come forward. I had the gut feeling it was because I was white (that and the perps kept shouting white boy, etc etc).

Also, SEPTA and the New York subways go through nice residential areas, too. Therefore they get used more by choice riders who choose to ditch their nice car for the trains. MARTA goes through literally only ghettos to the airport and 3 commercial districts. It does not service middle class and upper class neighborhoods (partly because those areas block MARTA from coming in, which is a shame).

Dont ride the train.

[mike7586]

Originally Posted by MikeandIke27

Dont ride the train.

You could be a bit more sensitive to his situation and that doesn't solve the problem. There's usually somewhat of a mix of people on the train, but it leans very heavily on the ghetto side. You can't escape the ghetto/thug types on any transit system in any city, but they are the minority of the riders on most lines. With MARTA, they are the majority on most of the lines. It's just how it is. I don't feel unsafe and it doesn't stop me from using the train every once in awhile, but lots of other people feel unsafe or have had issues. You can't deny MARTA has an image problem (a negative one) and you would *think* they would want to get rid of it.

[DTL3000]

Originally Posted by MikeandIke27

Dont ride the train.

Don't be an idiot.

[PedestriAnne]

Originally Posted by jsimms3

^^^Exactly. That sounds like the whole MARTA girl incident (you can Youtube that). Nobody defended that poor lady. Also, when I was attacked on MARTA, I was the only white person on the platform, and there were probably 30 bystanders (all black and 1 Hispanic) and nobody defended me at all. The cops made me go back down to the platform to try to ID the perps, and obviously they were gone (MARTA cops really really suck) and of course nobody was willing to help or come forward. I had the gut feeling it was because I was white (that and the perps kept shouting white boy, etc etc).

Also, SEPTA and the New York subways go through nice residential areas, too. Therefore they get used more by choice riders who choose to ditch their nice car for the trains. MARTA goes through literally only ghettos to the airport and 3 commercial districts. It does not service middle class and upper class neighborhoods (partly because those areas block MARTA from coming in, which is a shame).

How is it that you've managed to work the word "ghetto" into every post you've written in this thread?

And how can it be that MARTA only services "ghetto" and "poor" areas when you've said yourself that you live near a station but you're middle class, educated, etc?

Now, don't get the idea that I think MARTA is fantastic. I use it at least once a day, at least six days a week, at every hour of the day and night. I frequently feel like going over to their headquarters building with a rolled-up newspaper and just smacking everyone I see upside the head with it. My impression of MARTA got even worse after living in DC and using Metro for three years.

I don't disagree that MARTA needs a lot more riders who aren't accustomed to or willing to tolerate people acting crazy or just being obnoxious and trashy. Too many people have gotten used to bad behavior in public in general and on transit specifically.

You have good reason to be uneasy using MARTA after having been a crime victim. But the fact that certain people make you nervous doesn't make them "ghetto thugs."