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Don't start muttering about how you're going to blow up the train you're on
By adamg on Wed, 09/16/2015 - 9:40am
Surveillance photo via TPD.
UPDATED, 3:25 p.m. with Transit Police statement.
A man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask was arrested today after allegedly threatening to blow up the Forest Hills-bound Orange Line train he was on this morning - a threat he couldn't actually carry out because he had no bomb - Transit Police report.
Joesph Johnson, 30, was arrested on Washington Street outside the Tufts Medical Center stop, T police say, adding he made the threat to another passenger between Downtown Crossing and Tufts shortly after 9 a.m.
The train he was on was stopped for about 20 minutes at Back Bay as T cops, some in SWAT uniforms, looked for him on the train and then took passenger statements.
Johnson, who has become well known to police and downtown habitues in recent weeks because of the mask, is scheduled for arraignment tomorrow in Boston Municipal Court on a charge of making a false bomb threat, T police say.
In a statement, TPD Lt. Richard Sullivan said:
We will work with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office to ensure Johnson is held accountable for his actions. A clear message must be sent; behavior and statements such as exhibited by Johnson will not and cannot be tolerated on the MBTA. We apologize to anyone who may have been inconvenienced by this mornings incident.
Innocent, etc.
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Universal Hub - 1
T Alerts - 0
Although I got two alerts from the T (minor delay, than severe delay), they only stated "on Orange Line due to police action", and didn't bother to indicate the location.
Update as of 9:55 am - T now announcing "moderate delays due to earlier police action"
orange line now
It is semi normal now. So the announcement on the train was that there was police action at back bay and the whole orange line was halted under police action. I think it was both directions. Thanks for the update!
is it running now?
Our t announcement said the whole orange line was under police action, so folks went to green line, buses, etc.
Police action
I was on one of the following trains that was delayed by this. Meanwhile, on my train, a gentleman with a very large gym bag sitting on the other side of the person between us, suddenly said "Oh my God." I looked up to see what he was referring to, nothing. Several times on the ride, up until the time we were delayed by the police action, this man kept saying "Oh my God" and telling the guy next to us not to breathe on him. At one point he said that if the guy (who was pretending to ignore him) breathed on him again he would freak out. These are exactly the type of people you don't want to be on a subway car with when the train is delayed. The guy next to us left, then the guy looked at a woman sitting across from him and asked her where she thought she was going. Must be a full moon.
not a full moon
Tomorrow, Mercury goes retrograde, but this seems to be just your run-of-the-mill T nightmare!
eclipses
we're between a solar eclipse(13th) and a lunar eclipse(27th).
eclipse?!
Once upon a time, there was light in my life....
once upon a time
Once upon a time I was falling apart.. now I only make love in the dark..
Nothing I can say.. but a total eclipse of the heart.
for the very brave
If you want to ascend the loftiest peaks of kitsch, try it in German with vampires.
not quite...
Cybah - those aren't the lyrics. Try this instead. ;-)
Once upon a time I was falling in love
But now I'm only falling apart
And there's nothing I can do
A total eclipse of the heart
Once upon a time there was light in my life
But now there's only love in the dark
Nothing I can say
A total eclipse of the heart
LOL
:) Oops
I can empathize.
There's nothing like being stuck indefinitely on the T seated next to someone who seems to think that morning coffee is a substitute for brushing their teeth. The fumes from whatever is decomposing between their molars wafts by with every cell-phone syllable, and you experience a Proustian memory—the summer you were the lowest-level employee at the coffee shop and it was your turn to take out the trash. You flipped open the lid of the dumpster on that windless August afternoon and the stench rolled out like Satan's own red carpet. Somebody had been putting diapers in there. The smell of fermenting coffee, rotting milkfat, and shit seemed to be painted on the inside of your nostrils. You had been, to be charitable, an indifferent student until then, but that night you went home and studied like never before. You turned your academic life around that day…
Now, in the present, on the T, you turn your head and breathe from the other side; you try to get your breathing in phase with theirs so you're never inhaling when they're exhaling; you try to think in dispassionate clinical terms like hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, and dimethyl sulfide, but no matter what you do, at some point the timing fails. As consciousness fades and your vision dims you can almost see the wiggly cartoon smell lines, dancing fish skeletons, and flies.
I was on that train. There
I was on that train. There was a man in all black and a mask threatening to blow up the train. Several people moved to my car in fear from the first car. I was too busy playing Zynga poker to notice what was happening until we arrived to Back Bay (my stop) at 9:10am they would not open the doors. There was transit police and Swat. I took some pics but don't know how to upload it here.
E-mail them to me ...
[email protected]. Thanks!
When I hear stories like this...
I am happy I don't take the T anymore (most days, I hate the fact that I can't take the T anymore).
It sounds like no one confronted the guy and some moved away. That was probably the right thing to do, but these days, I've seen several situations where people act first (to restrain) and worry about whether they did the right thing or not later. I think it's part of the "we know how stories like these end" mindset for those who were closer to the events of 9/11 than most - such people are not willing to sit on their hands in threatening situations.
As I say, I'm not sure whether it's right or wrong (recognizing that reactions are highly situation-specific, and I don't have any specifics of this incident other than what was reported above), but I understand the mindset. The situation on the TGV in France come to mind - while that was a different situation (e.g., gun was visible), it was clear that those guys were not going to wait around to see whether the guy just wanted to take people hostage or was going to begin shooting people indiscriminately. In that situation, I think almost all would agree that it was a good thing that they acted first.
probabilities
The thing is, sadly, encountering a ranting, hostile mentally ill (or high or drunk or all of the above) person on the T or wandering around downtown is not that uncommon. Encountering a real mass violence situation is rare.
So, yeah. 99.999% of the time "crazy but harmless" is the right answer. And honestly, we don't want every hostile ranting mentally ill person to get jumped and whaled on, right?
Right
Right that we don't want every hostile ranting mentally ill person to get jumped and whaled on.
I have significant doubts, however, that everyone will be able to distinguish between the harmless mentally ill person, and the not harmless person (who might or might not be mentally ill).
Lastly, I'm not sure that the percentage of "crazy but harmless" people acting out on the T is quite so high.
It's pretty damn high.
I love the T but there are places and times when it just seems incredible how many hyped up, often drugged up people there are riding it. No more than your average street maybe but when you're all packed in you notice it more. The Orange line has a lot of addicts traveling to and from various treatment centers (I'm guessing) and there have definitely been a few explosive, upset people freaking out on the train. Not the T's fault but yeah---a little extra police presence would be nice.
Just guessing, but...
...I'd say the disagreement is with the "but harmless" part.
depends on the situation
Being in situation in public and on the T, you sort of intuit what action to take or not. I've intervened to de-escalate situations before; and other times, I've just felt/sensed not to. Sometimes it passes; culprits exit the train, self-regulate, and other times they don't.
Since nothing happened other than the man's rants, my guess is passengers did the right thing. and obviously someone brought it to the attention of the conductor or the conductor heard him.
I was on that train and got
I was on that train and got off at state street and was near another passenger that reported him to the T employee driving the train, who responded "there's nothing we can do, we can't discriminate" very disturbing
"there's nothing we can do,
Translation - Not my job.
Sounds like....
...absolute crap to me.
Creepy
Guy with the same description and mask on his arm, was walking around the Cambridge Galleria a few weeks ago.
Tall Thin Black Male
There is a guy I see frequently who wears a V For Vendetta (Guy Fawkes) mask on his arm, but he is NOT thin. He usually wears all leather and rarely speaks, I don't think this is the same dude, if we're referring to the same dude.
The man I saw was thin and
The man I saw was thin and kind of tall, wearing all black, with the mask on his arm. Something about him made me not want to be there anymore, and we left the mall because of him. He was not going in stores when I saw him, he was just walking around.
So this is what is going to
So this is what is going to happen if his threat became a reality? WHAT THE FUCK!!! Where is this guy? Is the MBTA prepared? Is the City prepared? All these cameras and riders as witnesses, but absent human responders?
Yes, they are prepared.
What else do you want the transit police to do, exactly? In the course of three stops (DTX to Back Bay, a ~4 minute ride outside of rush hour), someone noticed the guy muttering, called the transit police, and got the full police response. The guy had exited the train before that, and they caught him shortly thereafter. I'd call that a pretty good response.
For all the mocking we do of MBTA Transit Police at stations, they're actually amazingly quick to respond to calls from riders on the train. I was in an Orange Line car last year with an apparently-homeless woman who loudly announced her intention to get off the train at Downtown Crossing and commit suicide. Everyone else on the train did the "ignore the crazy person" routine, but she seemed unstable enough that I called it in to the Transit Police line. They asked for a couple of details (where the train was, which car I was in, what she looked like), and the train was held at the next stop (Mass Ave) while the Transit Police came through the car. Response time from when I called was less than 90 seconds, and there were 4 unformed officers who responded. No complaints on my part.
oh really?
I was assaulted on a train once, hit the intercom button, reported it, and they stopped at the next station, but let the guy wander off. The T police didn't show up for almost an hour, and when they did, the cop seemed exasperated and annoyed.
I've also been on the commuter rail when teens were rioting; it took them three stops to get ahold of the engineer, and we sat in the station for another half an hour waiting for the cops to show up.
Sounds like both times you
Sounds like both times you notified transportation officials...because you unknowingly did. They HATE to interrupt service. Call the police, use a station call box, or use that See Say app. No other option promptly gets to the Transit Police
Seen this guy before
I've come across this character before, he's in the Faneuil Hall area sometimes. More bark than bite, he seems as if he likes to get a rise out of people. He also seems like he may have some sort of handicap. If he keeps it up he's going to get beat up one day, he really is all talk.
I don't know. Have you read
I don't know. Have you read the news lately? I don't believe in the old saying "Bark is worse than bite" anymore. It sucks, but this guy could really snap one day if he's already this disturbed.
I was on the front train car
I was on the front train car with this guy. He politely asked if people could make room for him when he got on. He talked on the phone in a normal voice the whole time. Then got off and thanked somebody for directions or something. Never heard any bomb threats and I was 10 feet away from him. Nobody standing around there thought anything was wrong with him except he was wearing a mask. Maybe he said something before he got on. He had a green backpack on, one of those drawstring bags where people use the strings as straps with practically nothing in it. It had "Hand Delivered Hope" written in sharpie on it. He was tall, but not thin. He was a big guy.
I was standing in front of
I was standing in front of Royale on Monday night waiting to see stoner doom metal bands (in hindsight very fitting) when I noticed a tall, black guy wearing the Guy Fawkes mask stomping up Tremont Street heading for Downtown. At the time, I assumed mental damage of some kind. I still believe that.
Well, hopefully he was only
Well, hopefully he was only bluffing and didn't actually have a clock on him at the time.
saw this dude the other day
saw this dude the other day walking around the Commons during rush hour. Very strange indeed.
The Commons are Common
Without an s.
Park St station
I believe I've seen this guy hanging outside Park st station. Hes usually with the homeless looking people who are there typically after 4pm.
Post updated
With photos of him with and without the mask and a statement from Transit PD.
Creepy
Having only seen the photo of the guy in the mask, I have to say that he looks creepy. No idea if I would have felt differently had I been on the train, but when you consider that he was muttering about blowing up a train, I think it was a good idea that riders reported it.
The T is a moving asylum
Nice job by the T Police, Joe will be back on the subway within a week
30 years old?
30 years old?