Posted Oct. 10 at 12:50 p.m.

Keep your eyes peeled, Green Liners, and be careful. 

Word on the CTA street is that there may be a robbery ring afoot.  This according to Anna Friedman Herlihy who was unselfish enough to warn others about an incident during which she was nearly robbed on a train:

Attached is a flier about what happened to me with some tips for what other riders could have done to help, and what one should do if they are the victim of a similar crime. (Hopefully your mail filter allows attachments.) I'll be passing this out during the morning rush at my own el stop (Austin green line) tomorrow (F) morning, and am sending it out in email widely so that others may distribute it as well. (The community activist in me couldn't stand still just leaving it to the CTA and police to deal with.) See also the discussion on ctatattler.com, for yet another instance reported in the comments section.  There are also some pretty significant issues at hand in such matters--the lack of proper surveillance equipment on CTA trains and platforms, the poor visibility and locations for the attendant call buttons, the reluctance of the police to take reports resulting in much unreported crime.

Download GreenLineRobberyAlert.pdf

This is why there should be licensed concealed carry in Illinois and
Chicago. However, the sheeple of Chicago will never go the route of being
armed and prepared to defend theirselves. Keep on dialing 911 on the cell
phone and spraying little pepper spray containers at the bad guys, I'm sure
you'll be fine.

Being paralized with fear is a direct result of being unprepared to deal
with crime and violence. But, if you rely on the police, (which have no
Constitutional obligation to protect the individual), to protect you, then
fear is what will remain. No amount of public notices, blogs, rants,
cameras, or other security measures can ever replace a viligiant, law
abiding, and armed populace. That's why with 340,000 + cary permit holders,
Indiana in 2007 ranked 30th in overall violent crime while Illinois ranked
12th for the same period. Check the stats for yourself. The only crimes
that Indiana is higher in is NON-violent crimes, as criminals prefer unarmed
victims, and will commit crimes where they do not expect to encounter a
armed citizen when possible.

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/incrime.htm
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/ilcrime.htm

I am a former CTA conductor. DO NOT "Pull the emergency door realease..."! IT DOES NOT STOP THE TRAIN! It only puts the train in coast ("takes the power away"). It can take the operator up to 1/4 mile to notice the loss of power and figure what happened and stop the train. And, 1) you may fall out the open door or 2) be pushed out of the train! For a fast responce, pull the red emergency brake "cherry" on the end wall away from the operators cab. This will get the operator's and other passenger's attention real fast. Good luck.

JS, ARE YOU INSANE? Anybody who pulls a loaded firearm on a moving, shaking, crowded L car is officially dumber than the purse snatchers.

Anna - I completely applaud your efforts to notify fellow passengers.

But honestly, I'm not gonna try to physically come between you and the assailant. In this case they may have been teenagers who just wanted to steal someone's purse. But we have NO idea whether anyone was armed and I'm sorry, I'm not becoming a catch-all for a bullet or knife.

I'll totally call 911 and, if possible, go between train cars to get help. But sorry, no dice on physical intervention.

Spike is right.

This woman has some good ideas (she's right about the lack of security on trains/platforms), but suggesting that fellow passengers try to physically detain the assailants is dangerously naive. That kind of bravado gets people killed. She's trying to frame it under the guise of "come on folks, let's all help each other out" -- and I'm all for that, but it should NOT manifest itself by way of reckless behavior like physically getting in the way of a criminal who is potentially armed and/or willing to use violence. See to your own safety first, and once the situation is finished or under control, THEN see what you can do to help the victim.

Hi all,
Anna here.

I tried to offer a variety of ways that folks could have helped out, some more potentially risky than others. We all have our various limits on the amount of risk we're willing to take (many people have told me I should have just let the kid have my bag, rather than put myself at risk, which I obviously absolutely disagree with). Some are more willing than others to put themselves potentially in harm's way for the greater good. In this particular case, it was clear after I got my bag back, that the main assailant was just an unarmed teenager, scared to death of getting caught.

As for the door release issue--I will have to look into that further. Two different CTA employees gave me that suggestion after the fact, which is why I put it in.

Stay tuned for a public service YouTube video that I will be putting together in the next few weeks to show how amazingly easy it is to obscure the call button, and how invisible they are in even a mostly empty train. It's really shocking that they are at head height where someone tall sitting in the seat in front of them can completely block them from view. And the "blue light" that marks their location: it is not recognizably blue (just looks like a bulb burnt out in the overhead ad holders) and is not over the location of the button (but rather quite a ways off to the side).

"Some are more willing than others to put themselves potentially in harm's way for the greater good."

Anna, I deeply resent your implication here. As I said, I would be willing to make a number of efforts to help.

But I don't AT ALL appreciate your implication that I'm an uncaring person and unconcerned with the "greater good."

Then again, I've had friends who tried to stop someone stealing a TV and ended up dying because they made that stand. I apparently have a completely different viewpoint than you, and that viewpoint, Anna, is that dead people cannot watch TV.

Best regards to you and your efforts, though.

Well, I'll tell you this. I ride the train lines regularly, and I've been waiting to see that happen in front of me. Oh, I ready myself for it. I mentally visualize it every day. You see, I know what those (let's call them "underprivileged") folk are thinking. They're entitled. They've got habits. They've got unreasonable gripes reinforced by laziness and cowardice. And they have the blind stupid luck of force on their side. Force is an advantage. It asks for a commitment in a modern day world where comfort and the idea of the "entitled" life trump sacrifice. There was self-policing once upon a time, when the World was a little wider and meaner and more comfortable. You could respect an outlaw then, because he had to be more than a transfer-card carrying lingo-slinging member of the underclass. He had to commit.

I'm sorry I couldn't be there, Anna. I very much wish I was. And I have no intention of casting doubt on my fellow man and woman rider who chooses not to interfere. I understand if there are things to be valued in life that mean you can't help even though you'd like to. I would never call that cowardice, because you just can't ask any man to lay it down. Who knows what he has to lose? The exception here is I too have that same valuing. I have decided to couple it to righteous rage, and take stock in the belief that because I am prepared, intelligent, and blooded, and my adversaries success pivots only on bluster, calculated ignorance, luck, and untrained weapons skill ; that I can get the drop on these lesser assailants and then make them pay. Right there, on the spot, as an example that You Just Don't Get To Dance Without Having To Pay The Man. I'm riding, and I'm waiting. Might cost me my life, but I'm willing to set that example. They're going to have to make sure they intend to do the same. Commitment. They can't do it in those dead-end slow suicides they pass for lives nowadays, but they will when they run into me.

They might win, but they will know they've been in a fight.

I'll be looking out for you, Anna, and for as many Annas (and Johns and Joes and Beckys and whoever else that deserves to just be able to get themselves home).

The "underprivileged" have their street tax.

I have a tax of my own.

Hello, I would just like to alert fellow Green Line riders to the frightening situation I just experienced tonight 12/10/08. Shortly after exiting the 5:40 pm westbound train at Conservatory (Central Park), I was suddenly surronded by three male teenagers and robbed at gun point for my purse, MP3 player and a shopping bag I was carrying. The public needs to know that there is gang of young men roaming the westside of Chicago committing armed robberies! I was very fortunate that I was allowed to walk away and did not come to any physcial harm. I do intend to report this crime to the police and the transit authority to alert them to this activity in the hope that some one else do not have to endure the nightmare I have experience tonight!

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