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As police investigate yesterday's morning subway platform rape at the 21st Street G stop in Long Island City, it turns out that a token booth clerk did see the suspect "pick up" the victim, but stayed in his token booth and pressed a panic button, which is standard procedure for NYC Transit workers. The NYC Transit spokesperson also added that a subway conductor saw the platform attack, but couldn't stop the train using emergency brakes because it would have injured passengers; the conductor did notify the Station Command Center. The NYC Transit said both workers acted "properly," and another transit source told the Daily News, "The clerk has no way of knowing if he's being set up." The Transit Workers Union said, "The clerk has no way of knowing if he's being set up," and stood behind the clerk staying in the booth, "Our agents are not police officer."
The 21 year-old old victim, an art student, was on her way to her boyfriend's house. Newsday had some statistics about the subway stop: It had 766 passengers in 2003, making it the 414th busiest out of 420 stations; and there is only one exit.
Photograph from Newsday
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The MTA is useless.
dram. that's some great procedure there, but i suppose it makes sense.
maybe the station needs more cops patroling it.
maybe someone needs to respond to the "panic button" when it's pushed. or is it kinda like those buttons on traffic lights? They just exist to give you something to do, but they don't actually do anything.
Another A-hole token clerk that stands by and gawks while people are assaulted. Good riddance to the token clerks. The Transit Union's defence of the cowardly token clerk as "acting properly" also indicates that there is a corruption problem at the union.
766 passengers in one year? That's 2 passengers, or one person going to and returning from work, a day, with an odd passenger appearing every week and a half or so. It seems like the appearance of anyone on the platform would almost be enough for the token booth clerk to push the panic button. And why, when the MTA is removing token booth clerks from some of the busiest stations in the system, are they posting a full-time employee at a stop that only gets two customers a day? Clearly they're not there for safety reasons.
That's a tough call for the Token booth operator. Despite the Corrupt Union Conspiracy theories, It's easy enough for some to be an Arm Chair Quarterback and imply what they'd do, another thing to actually do it.
What was the response time for the Police?
The MTA seems to be sinking further and further into decline. What a pity. If Bloomberg hopes to be re-elected, I think he should put the MTA at the top of his list. I don't ride the trains anymore, I ride my bike. But that's not an option for most New Yorkers. The subway really is the life-blood of this city -- I think we will see the affects of the worsening subway system in areas we previously though were unrelated. If the Mayor can't fix it, then we must find someone who can.
It's 766 Metrocard swipes per day, not per year.
S.D. Ever thought of working for the Transit Union? You can be another strong advocate for cowardly token clerks. He should have been fired by now.
The subway is awesome. Don't use the G train at 3AM and you will be OK.
OK, that per day/per year discrepancy pretty much makes my previous comment meaningless. While I agree that clerks aren't cops and shouldn't be required to leave their booths to be crimefighters, it's pretty damn shameless for the Transit Workers Union to use the rape of a woman as a selling point to keep clerks in booths. The clerk saved the day by pushing a button when he heard a woman screaming and saw her being attacked? What a hero!
And while the TWU is reprehensible and the MTA is worthless, the guilty party here remains the sick psycho that raped this poor girl.
B.D. Again: it's Arm Chair Quarter backing.
You want to bash the Union, Hey, Knock yourself out. You want to act like it's easy to jump out, Fine.
Want to continue to play that game of "what if"? Suppose he did jump out and this guy shot/stabbed them both?
I have absolutely No doubt, had you been there, You'd Nab this guy in a Heroic rescue.
Now, if you want to start jumping on the TA Union, continue with more knee jerk reaction nonsense like "You can be another strong advocate for cowardly token clerks", well, it's a bit off topic don't you think?
No one is asking the subway clerk to be a cop. But at least say something and shout at the dude. Maybe it will scare him enough to stop. And if there's only 1 exit, why not lock it and then lock yourself in the booth again. So the rapist walked right past the token booth clerk in order to leave? WTF. If you're not a cop, at least be a decent citizen.
The TWU is not corrupt. Your claims to the contrary reveal a complete lack of information about the NY labpr movement other than Bloomberg's propaganda whenever he's facing a contract struggle. They've got a 65-plus-year history of being a strong, militant, democratic local and deserve credit for it. As for how the worker responded, It's pointless to second-guess at this point, and a more useful question to ask would be how can we make sure this never happens again.
first off unions in the US served their purpose. now they just cause problems. go to france if you want to strike more (and kiss your image in a mirror). and as for making sure this never happens again.....it sounds like the damn union thinks nothing is wrong with how it went the first time. "he did the right thing and saved the day" what BS. he didn't stop it because he wouldn't gain any extra hazard pay. if it was his daughter he would have done something. surprised the union doesn't say "our members will help customers and more importantly other fellow humans only if you pay us for each incident we stop. what scumbags. maybe you can charge me $2.50 now and still provide nothing but more outages.
Part of the problem with the TWU and most NYC unions is that they are apologist's for incompetence. The clerk obviously should have done something about this. As for this notion of "armchair quarterbacking" I recall one night on an almost deserted platform observing three guys getting into a girls face, relentlessly harrassing her. I walked over to the them and asked what the fuck they thought they were doing. I almost got my ass kicked, but they left her alone. Maybe nyc needs more "kneejerk reactionaries" instead of people who want to stay locked in their booths with their precious panic buttons.
what about some sort of alarm that the clerk could set off or some sort of announcement over the pa system like "the police are on their way." not sure that any are possible economically, but maybe it would have scared off the perp.
how come no one is questioning how long it took the cops to arrive? 10 minutes? the precinct is on 50th and vernon which is a less than 10 minute walk! they could have been there in less than 2 minutes had the moved their asses. there is never a shortage of cops on vernon BUT they have a tendency to be hanging out in the deli or in front of the corner bar...
When you see something happening, you call 911. The booth worker pressed their panic button, which is, I guess, their version. Why that didn't bring an immediate response is really the problem. What if it was the booth worker in trouble? Not to mention, why can't the train driver radio someone? There is really no voice contact?
Bottom line - when something like this is happening, you have to use everything at your disposal to stop it. Use the station PA, the train PA, whatever. The MTA and police need to work better together. It's just so sad that something like that can happen while people are watching.
"Not to mention, why can't the train driver radio someone?"
the conductor did.
ultimately, nothing is going to prevent things like this. if someone wants to commit rape, and the victim is not armed or is caught unaware, etc...it's not like the cops are going to get there immediately in every situation, or even in most.
in some cases, more kneejerk reactionaries are needed, but there were none to be found in this particular case.
Commenters should RTFA before they comment. The motorman DID radio his commander, and sounds genuinely remorseful that he couldn't do more.
And there are actually three exits, all of which are at one end of the station, so the token booth clerk couldn't have locked the rapist in.
There reason the clerks are not supposed to leave the booths is for their own safety. I'm really pissed off that the clerk didn't do more either, but I think it's awfully santimonious of some of you to assert that he should have put himself in danger to save her. He's not a cop. He's not REQUIRED to help. It wasn't too long ago that token booth clerks were victims of violent crimes themselves. And since I've taken the train at this station several times a week for over a year now, I feel confident in stating that I've never seen a clerk in this station who would be physically capable of subduing an attacker.
According to the Newsday article, when a clerk pushes a panic button, the following happens: "Transit officials said a clerk can alert supervisors to an emergency through the Emergency Booth Communication System, which connects directly to the Stations Command Center. Workers there ask the agent about the problem. With that information, the command center notifies the agency's Rapid Transit Operations Department, police and four other departments simultaneously." It's an awful situation that played out on this platform. Of course there's a lot of "what ifs" about it, but I'm sure that if it were possible, streamlining such an seldom-used (I say this because I'm not aware of how many times a clerk has to use it.. they know it's there for emergencies and used accordingly, but for the most part it's not used) but vital emergency alert system might help.
How long does one think it takes to go through from clerk to the actual police from the time of the panic button being activated? Does anyone know? Just curious.
What is with the people around here? It's like they can't be bothered to read the articles that are linked to above. It's not 766 passengers per year. It's 766 per day, or 279,590 in 2003. Don't rely on Gothamist to write everything up perfectly. It's a blog, not a fact-checked and edited newspaper. And it's easy to castigate the clerk in the booth for being "cowardly." Not so easy if you actually read the article that says it's against MTA regulations to leave the booth for any reason. The cops always tell people not to be heroes, because it's awfully dangerous. It's good advice.
The articles are filled with statements from TWU apologists. Here's Ed Watt from the TWU positioning the token clerk as the victim.
"We're going to have tragedy after tragedy after this until they learn the value of human presence in the subway," said Ed Watt, secretary-treasurer of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union. "The agent saw something and was conscientious enough to let people know."
typical, bob. only a republican tool incapable of thinking for himself would single out a union in a rape. a little simplistic and opportunistic, don't you think? when you take a job with the mta, you certainly are not signing up, nor are you being paid to risk your life to be a cop. those are two very different jobs and they have two different unions. good for you for being a brave lil vigilante, but some folks only feel capable of calling the cops.
Bob Denver are you Bruce Wayne?
Here's an easy solution. Have the panic button link directly to patrol cops nearby. Have MTA officials patched into the call to make sure it's all legit, but the reality is that there are indeed more cops on the subways. But the chain of communication to get to them is more complex than need be.
bob, you're out of line. token booth operators are NOT police officers. when they see something that appears wrong, they should call the actual police, which is what this token book operator did.
Let's take your scenario further, OK? Let's say the operator gets out of his/her booth and then confronts the person. How do they confront them? With what? Most of the token booth operators I see are women in their 50s. they're not carrying guns. What do you want them to be doing? Meanwhile, who's minding the station should some emergency occur?
It's easy to judge safely behind your computer monitor, bob, but what the operator did, i.e. notified the police, was the correct thing.
This is not "blame the victim" in any way, but frankly, if I'm in a little-used subway station (the whole G line applies there) and there's nobody on the platform but me, I'll be hanging by the turnstiles and/or the token booth area. It's not ideal, but at least you're not completely stranded in case someone comes shuffling up to you.
What 'editor' says certainly is common sense. It doesn't apply to this case, however, since the woman was initially attacked on the subway proper, causing her to miss her stop. She then managed to get out at the next stop (21st street) and the attacker continued to pursue her up a flight of stairs. It wasn't like she was hanging around solo at the end of a desolate platform.
hijiki - yes, yes, there are TWU rules that require the token clerk not to leave the booth, but common sense dictates that this was an "extraordinary circumstance." If you are looking for republican tools follow the rigid minded who don't believe in making exceptions to the rules. Unions can do great things for workers, it's just that in nyc they are rarely controlled by the rank and file, but rather buearocrats that don't believe in grey areas.
bob, like i said earlier, so what? let's say the clerk even left the platform. what do you expect them to do then? they don't have guns, they're (as far as i've seen) not strong beefy guys. what exactly did you want a tollbooth operator to do?
subway rider- if they can't leave the booth then they serve no purpose other than acting as a fleshy security cam. In this case I would expect them to do the same thing as what the average subway rider would do.
Sounds like the chat is devolving into a replay of the old kew gardens Kitty Genovese case arguments from the sixties, which I don't exactly relish, so I'll leave it at that.
at that point, bob, i think it becomes a personal initiative which is beyond the realm of unions. it just seems distasteful to drag politics into this terrible crime. in this case, it seems the union is doing exactly what it should... backing up the employee who did his/her job by alerting authorities and for not adding the possibility of a second victim. only you can determine whether or not you can thwart a crime in progress. fine, you say you can, but perhaps this person knew he/she could not. you can't expect everyone to have a hero inside and you can't really blame a union for that.
thanks, hijiki, you said exactly what I wanted to express.
Bob, what if the clerk is a 50 year old 5 foot tall 90 pound female? Do you expect her to fight off the rapist? Let's get real here. You might want to be a hero but not everyone does and don't blame the MTA or TWU if the clerk decided to "only" press the button.
o.k. hijiki - I'm a big meany for victimizing the benificient union spokesman and the poor token clerk.
bob, I know you're just a troll here at Gothamist, but allow me to waste the last five minutes of my lunch hour allowing you to anger me:
You're completely unwilling to accept that it's the policy of the MTA that its token booth clerks NOT LEAVE THE BOOTH in the case of an emergency. That's fine.
I'm sure that there are some token booth clerks who are more than willing to go beyond what is required of them and leave the token booth to assist a crime victim. But what makes you so certain that this particular token booth clerk, about which you know nothing (beyond his name), was even physically capable of stopping this woman from being attacked? I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but since you don't appear to intellectually process anything anyone else has said, I'll say it again: The booth clerks at this station are, in my experience, old and/or out of shape.
Also, just so's you know, the likely reason that Kitty Genovese wasn't helped by anyone in her apartment building is because a lesbian.
[d'oh! she was a lesbian.]
I grabbed a Newsday this morning and read the articles on my way to work. The whole situation sounded utterly horrifying. The woman who was raped had missed her stop because the guy who attacked her was harassing her while she was on the train. She then apparently got out at the 21st Street stop and ran for her life before the guy caught her at the top of the stairs (in view of the token booth) and dragged her back down to the platform to rape her. I felt myself wincing as I read the story.
While it's troubling that the token booth clerk didn't ignore regulations and get out of the booth, this is definitely an easier-said-than-done situation. For those of you that are calling shame on the token booth clerk, think on this: he will be hearing those screams for help in his nightmares for the rest of his life.
Lesson to us all: DON'T TAKE THE G TRAIN ALONE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. Seriously, you just should not ride on a subway line that is that deserted in the middle of the night. Crash at someone's place or call a car service. Just remembering this story will make the extra cost worth it.
the kitty genovese wasn't about lesbians or about people unwilling to do nothing - it's about the fact that drunk people shout stupid shit more or less constantly.
"The agent saw something and was conscientious enough to let people know."
that's a pretty stupid fucking thing for anyone, much less a union rep, to say. conscientious? as in "well, she could have been sleeping!"
dhex: you have got to be kidding me. People looked out their fucking windows into the courtyard and saw her getting stabbed. It was not about drunk people. Sheesh.
Seemed from the artcile that she was dragged back and raped "in front of the tooken booth". Sorry but I would like to think that even if I was a 60 year old out of shape fatty I would have done something. Anything. Go down swinging (your fire extinguisher)at least.
Dont think it is really about being a "hero" but about not being an coward who could sit there while a woman is raped in front of you.
Go read up on Winston Moseley, the man who raped and murdered Kitty Genovese in the middle of the night in Queens 41 years ago. Then read the description of the man who raped the woman in the subway station in Queens late last night. You'll find they have a great deal in common. But since this vital commonality can't be spoken aloud in polite company, we need to find a more politically correct scapegoat - a sleeping neighbor perhaps, or a token booth clerk.
So when the token booth clerks are getting laid off, the union claims their chief purpose is to protect us, the riding public, in case someone wants to rape us in the station. But when someone actually does rape one of us, it's not their job to police the station. Good riddance useless union parasites!
Her? What a brilliant "solution"...
IMO, The Union Bashers here would bash the union for Not being in the Token booth.
They should really shutter the 21st Street station, the Court Square stop is literally 1000 feet away.
i'll repeat: why did it take the cops over 10 minutes to get to a station that's less than a 10 minute walk away?
The Evil Still-No-Contract PBA Union?
Um, Sorry, it was just too easy...
Stop hiding behind the rules of the MTA and unions. If you were walking by someone who was getting raped would you 1. stop and yell/hit the perp, 2. call 911, 3. run the other way and say "good luck"? I would hope it's 2 and then 1. It's harder for a perp to fight two people than just one. And if you answered anything other than 3, I commend you because you're not being paid or forced by rules to do it. You do it because you know that you should. I would argue that if this booth clerk had any dignity, he/she would have helped.
I pay $2 a ride to be given attitude at the booths, watch conductors close doors on the local as the express pulls into the station, have no AC on cars, wait 15 minutes for trains during rush hour, and have the subways shut down every time it rains. Now I get to be raped with an audience. Lovely!
If you hit an MTA worker, it is now the same as hitting a cop. So guess what, if they're afforded that "protection" then they should earn it with their actions.
An Interesting statement. I would have thought that Assaulting any city employee would have the same penalty as assaulting any other citizen, but It may carry heavy penalties.
So, since you think that assaulting a MTA employee gets the same penalty as assaulting an armed police officer, Therefore, the MTA Employee is Now Deputized as an unarmed "cop"? Did I interpret your sentence properly?
What an idea that is...
You are incorrect. Assaulting a booth clerk or conductor is no longer considered the same as assualting any other citizen. The union fought to make sure that it is now the same as assaulting a police officer. Their argument for gaining this distinction was that MTA workers are there to protect the customers of the MTA. My statement should be read as thus....anyone can press a button. While an MTA worker may not be afforded extra "protection" in the course of an incident, they have fought and one that distinction in the eyes of the law. That distinction should be taken away if they do not fulfill their part of the deal.
And let us not forget that we are customers of the MTA. If this happened in a McDonalds, how much money do you think they would lose in the lawsuit. Fortunately for the MTA, they are already so mismanaged they will just go through bankruptcy instead of paying any damages if the victim decides to sue.
As an aside, anyone remember the final episode of Seinfeld? Quite apropos.
Live and Learn.
The reference to the last Seinfeld is, IMO, Off. The Token Booth Operator did do something, he summoned help.
No, he did the equivalent of screaming "help". To summon help is to actually get it. Did he really think that panic button worked? It must have been the longest 10 minutes of his life until the flash-like cops showed. And yet that was all he did. If he was being attacked inside his booth, would he simply lock the door with the perp inside and press the button? After all, that's what the rules are. Lock yourself in the booth and press the panic button. Pay no mind to logic or emotions, just follow the rule.
Well, N.E., How do you know that all he did was push the Button? The News Articles are missing a lot of details (Weapon, why it took them 10 minutes, did he use the PA system, etc.) Was he NOT in contact with the Police? Since those booths have Phones, I bet either the police got on the line to him when he hit the buttin or he got on the line with them.
Did the Panic button set off a loud Alarm? Was it a Silent Alarm or Not?
You want to Assume that he only hit the button nad nothing else, ok.
the MTA union should be disbanded and the MTA board replaced with elected representatives. MTA workers are the laziest pieces of crap around.
Here we are on day three and the token booth clerk still has not been fired. The TWU claims that he acted properly and the MTA say they have no intention of changing policy. The politicians make fuzzy statements about changes being made without being specific. The mayor is AWOL. What's wrong with this picture.
Just because a police force exists whose job it is to protect citizens does not mean the rest of us raise our hands helplessly and say its not my job. This sort of malaise is emblematic of our society in general. Shareholders dont bother to vote on boards that scam them, voters dont bother voting for their elected officials. Come on - its every human being's decent civic response to help out another in whatever way they can - everyone who saw the crime and did nothing other than token measures is at fault that this young girl got raped just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
SD...are you the clerk or are you related to him? You are completely missing the point. Whatever this clerk did or did not do does not matter. It made no difference. So if he did nothing, he should be ashamed. And if he did something and nothing happened from it, he should also be ashamed. If he spoke to the police....great but then what? Did he yell to the guy, "hey, the cops say stop now and they'll be here in 10 min to arrest you." The bottom line is that his actions or inactions did not help this poor girl and as far as we can tell, it was inaction.
Where are the NYCLU and the bike activist drama queens when you need them. They stay in silent collusion and would rather tilt at straw men.
Um, pardon me, "no excuses," but what would have been the ideal outcome for you in this situation?
And the NYCLU? What are you on about, here? This isn't a civil liberties issue, bob.
i'd be most ashamed of twisting someone's awful rape to make a political grandstand. seriously... unions? the mayor? nyclu? cyclists? you're clearly not interested in making this situation any better so much as making everything else go your way.
so the guy didn't try to take on a crazed criminal... not everyone is equiped to handle these situations. i'm sure he is tortured by his lack of heroicism, but he's quite obviously not the one to blame here. and don't give me this civic duty garbage... you know if he had jumped in you all would be calling him just that, a hero. heroicism is not civic duty, it's a personal trait.
It's not a matter of civic duty. It's a matter of obviously flawed policies that no one is aggressively questioning and others are defending. You can't tell me the status quo is acceptable. Over the long run it will shake itself out. Oddly, I think the average token clerk probably would have a sensible take on how to reform the policies, but the only voices you hear are from union and MTA officials and politicians who claim to speak for them.
policies do not turn people into heroes. you're simply trying to push an agenda. the police are the ones trained to deal with these situations but you're blaming a union for standing by their members. incompetent cops and faulty security measures... maybe, but unions? nyclu?
First you're blaming the token booth clerk and wondering aloud why he hasn't been fired yet and NOW you're saying it's the fault of the policy and the officials? Your logical fallacies ascend to new heights, bob!
I don't think a position on an incompetent token clerk and flawed policies are mutually exclusive LIC. The NYCLU's webpage has some prattling about the dangers of having security cameras in subways stations. While I don't think security cams are the answer I don't see getting worked up about them being installed and don't think they're an infringement on my civil rights. While the NYCLU gets agitated about silly issues the elephant in the room is the union & mta apologists for the token clerk and flawed policies and the politicians inaction.