Reason #3,129 guns should be kept off MARTA
May 7, 2008 at 11:19 am by Thomas Wheatley in NewsYou might want to wear headphones or at least turn down the volume for this one. (For those afraid to blindly click: Freestyling, senior citizen badgering, wild accusations, MARTA, video.)
UPDATE: Erick over at Peach Pundit, citing a confidential source at one of the 29 La Quinta Hotel locations in the state, says the governor will sign the guns-in-Girl-Scouts-meetings bill, or whatever the Hades those liberals are calling that thing these days.
UPDATE, THE SEQUEL: Youtube’s now got it.
UPDATE, YET AGAIN: MARTA released a statement about the incident, announcing that a warrant has been issued for the female’s arrest.
(Thanks to Brooke Hatfield)
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May 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
It’s just one more reason why MARTA needs to have their police actually riding on the trains. How sad that someone would so rudely disrespect the elderly woman and that all those other riders did not even try to come to her defense.
Jill Chambers
May 8th, 2008 at 6:46 am
This is a perfect reason that people with concealed carry permits SHOULD be allowed on MARTA. If I had seen this, and it had escalated to actual physical violence, I would have no problem giving that ghetto whore two in the hat.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:06 am
Cricket, you make the point of gun control advocates everywhere.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Cricket it DID escalate to physical violence when the guy finally stood up and stopped the aggressor. No weapons needed.
That poor old woman. I can’t believe it took that long for SOMEBODY to stand up to her being assaulted.
Notice how rapidly Soulja Girl’s attitude changed when she was confronted by someone who showed force in an appropriate manner.
Bullies fold when someone calls them on their crap. It’s a shame it took someone that long to stand up to her.
As an aside, don’t you just LOVE the beautiful world of Hard Core Hip Hop culture.
May 8th, 2008 at 9:54 am
How,
If someone poses a threat to life and limb in a sparsely populated enclosed space why shouldn’t someone be able to keep themselves (and others) safe. I admit two in the hat is a bit hyperbolic, but the sentiment stands. I personally believe I can end a confrontation like this without weapons, however what about that old lady? What happens when someone like that pulls a gun? Don’t think that just because it’s against the law lowlifes don’t pack on the train. Marta police are a joke very rarely have I seen them do anything proactive, and with crime in-town going up exponentially scenes worse than this will happen.
Arguments on both sides the restaurant part of the bill are dubious, but many times on MARTA you have nowhere to go.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:03 am
How about everybody ride around with a tranquilizer dart gun instead? That girl was clearly high as a freakin’ kite, in a psychotic frenzy. I hope she gets help. And soon. Seriously.
More to the media-related point, is there a place we can put money on how fast this thing goes viral? Advice Grift?
May 8th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Peach Pundit picked it up. I’m waiting for a story from That Other Paper that doesn’t credit it in any way whatsoever to other forms of media humming in the city that it covers.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
for the love of god….i wish the people that keep claiming that marta is a high crime place would actually back it up with some statistics.
as for marta cops riding the trains, clearly the commenter who made that claim hasn’t ridden marta much….
May 8th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
It’s been probably about a year now for me that I’ve noticed more police presence in the stations and on the trains.
As far as statistics go, the last I checked, MARTA’s crime rate is lower than Alpharetta’s.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Here’s a four-year comparison of crimes reported by MARTA police:
http://itsmarta.com/police/crime_stats/comparison.htm
May 8th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
That’s why always pack heat when I’m in Alpharetta.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Joe’s right. Larceny, burglary, robbery are all higher in AlphaTown.
Alpharetta:
http://alpharetta.ga.us/index.php?p=397
MARTA:
http://itsmarta.com/police/crime_stats/quarterly.htm
May 8th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I agree that MARTA is safe, which is why I ride it about twice a week.
That said, if it were not for the cops I see riding around in MARTA patrol cars and standing around the terminal entry, I wouldn’t know what a MARTA cop looks like.
MARTA is safe because the LAST thing a criminal wants is to conduct his business while locked inside a steel can with no easy path of escape. I also would not be surprised to learn there are cameras on the trains. Anybody know?
May 8th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Dale - Thanks to the Breeze system, there are cameras on the busses. At one time, there were also cameras in the stations. I believe MARTA has been replacing the old cameras with ones that work. Thanks to that, we saw surveillance of the now-infamous New Year’s escalator incident.
The reason why MARTA’s officers were once less present in the stations & trains than they are now is thanks to the Department of Homeland Security and a program at MARTA called M*PACT.
In any case, there’s clearly still room for improvement. Whereas having officers off the trains would make it easier for the officers to respond to calls… it also makes sense to have more officers on the trains for the preventative effect.
For a while MARTA claimed they had a number of plainclothes officers on the trains, and I didn’t believe it until I saw a couple of plainclothes officers make an arrest.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:27 am
i ride marta just about every day and i can tell you that i frequently see uniformed marta police riding the trains.
in fact there is one cop that rides the e-w train in the evening so often that we have started giving each other recognition nods.
May 9th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Dude, Dale, did you just call “superman” Hard Core HipHop?
Please, appropriately hang your head in shame.
The woman in the video was not a life threatening individual. Although, she is severely testing sanity and patience, being horrendously disrespectful, aggressive, and antagonizing..It was NOT dealt with appropriately by the young man, as you can see, it only escalated the situation. There are better ways to deal with something like this that do not involve HITTING.
Of course, armchair quarterbacking is so easy. It took so long for ppl to respond b/c they couldn’t believe what was happening and certainly didn’t expect it to last as long as it did.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Roxie - I was referring to the language, posture, aggression and menacing attitude that is ever present in hard core and was flawlessly displayed by this idiot.
She was life threatening, she said it explicitly. I choose to believe a person means their threat before they actually kill the person they are assaulting.
Please explain how you can tell she was not a threat to the old woman. Better yet, explain it to the old woman.
The guy that stepped up did handle it. The aggressor left the old woman, focused her attention on the guy, became passive rather than aggressive and got off the train.
The “escalation” came when someone TALKED to the idiot, the confrontation was effectively neutralized when the man decided to “talk right down to Earth, in language everyone here can easily understand”.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
BTW, nobody “hit” her. the guy grabbed her hair and moved her away from the passenger net to him that is appears was the new focus of the idiot.
Nothing stops a punk aggressor like a restrained and appropriate show of force, especially when it is in the protection of someone else.
May 9th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Seeing as how this incident was defused by a simple act of wig pulling, perhaps Gov. Perdue should sign a bill that protects individual rights to pull others’ wigs in restaurants, parks, churches and other public places.
“A wig-pulling society is a polite society.”
May 10th, 2008 at 6:18 am
She was not a threat worth pulling a knife, club or pepper spray for, much less a gun. SHe was looking for negative attention because its obvious that’s the only kind she can get. In that situation the best resolution is avoidance. You stay alert and ready to put her black ass down if she becomes violent or displays a weapon, until the next stop and then you get off and get on the next train going in that direction. As for sticking up for the old lady until she became in danger of life or limb its just none of my business. Its not worth my life or my family’s just to be chivalrous. If I draw down it will be for the right reasons and somewhat defendable in court.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Why is society so deeply ill? The answer might lie in this utterly morally corroded statement from Matt above:
“As for sticking up for the old lady until she became in danger of life or limb its just none of my business. Its not worth my life or my family’s just to be chivalrous. If I draw down it will be for the right reasons and somewhat defendable in court.”
May 10th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Tell me again why I should have my taxes increased so the likes of this can access my town via rapid rail? If high gas prices are keeping the likes of this in the “hood”, viva la gas prices!
…and yes, this is a perfect example of the need for CCW on MARTA trains. This deranged individual should have been put on the floor the moment she first raised her hand to the elderly passenger. I’ll save my sympathy for the defenseless, thanks very much.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Did I miss something? What did this incident have to do with carrying concealed weapons on MARTA or anywhere else, for that matter? If I missed something please tell me what it was, OK?
May 11th, 2008 at 2:08 am
From what I saw on the Video of the
“incident” on MARTA and, from what I read from those who responded to this video, I sure hope none of those who responded with statements, in effect saying they would shoot this person if she became physical (regardless of whether or not this lady was armed with anything more than a hairbrush), I hope these responders are NOT licensed to carry concealed. These people frighten me a lot more than the lady on the video! Shame on you! And, I am licensed to carry concealed. And, I fought in Viet Nam and I KNOW what it looks like and WHAT IT FEELS LIKE to shoot someone or have someone shoot at you or even hit you. You folks are soooo naive. I really hope you do not have a license to carry.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:13 am
You think this person has the legal qualifications to obtain a CCL? ha!
May 12th, 2008 at 9:54 am
People like Matt are as much to blame for our problems as the deranged aggressor in the video.
A real man protects the weak and defensless by intellect and reason, both of which will let him know when force, a last resort, is necessary.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Most of you seem to be missing one of the main points about carrying on MARTA: Even if you were to accept that MARTA is safe, what about where you end up walking when you get off MARTA? Are MARTA cops, or Atlanta Police going to follow you around to protect you when you get off the train at whatever station and walk five blocks to your destination? Cops cannot be everywhere. MARTA should be for all lawful residents, not just those who choose not to exercise their right to self defense.
May 12th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Scott - kind of like when I drive to work? Work is safe, but getting there and back isn’t….many of the people who are arguing against CCW on MARTA are also against CCW at work, probably becasue they are against CCW in all cases. Your point is logical and intelligent, which means it will be dismissed immediately by many of the folks in these threads.