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We frequently hear complaints during the school year about groups of kids on their way home from school misbehaving and causing problems on the city's public transit system. And now WMATA is encouraging you to lodge those complaints with Metro Transit Police. Metro has designated a specific phone number, 202-962-2118, to report disruptive behavior on the part of kids. The transit agency also says it will be deploying additional officers to trouble spots during the after-school hours, in an effort to break up trouble before it escalates. “We want to start off the new school year right, and let students and all of our riders know that their safety is our top priority. Everyone should feel secure while riding Metro,” said Metro Transit Police Chief Michael A. Taborn in a statement.
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Maybe Metro should just close down service during after-school hours entirely.
Give me AT&T service in the tunnels and I can actually use this. Makes no sense to report it once I get above ground, because the kids would likely be long gone by the time anyone tries to intervene.
Citizen's arrest!
Since I'm not commuting when most kids get out of school, I have not noticed a huge problem. Is it really that bad or are most adults just being Grinch-like assholes? If the kids are loud, I'm really not to concerned at 4pm.
With the middle school kids, more so than with the high school kids, it can be menacing and more than a little terrifying, actually. I've never seen anything like it.
I hear that, G McSp. Once on a 30s bus around 4pm, a girl from Rose L. Hardy middle school nearly attacked a woman who had kindly asked her to stop throwing potato chips at other passengers. Fortunately, a new teacher was on the bus and got the name of the girl from a classmate. Some of the kids were being a bit pesky, but that girl was a lil sociopath.
lesson: avoid Metro when the kids are leaving school.
(From what I've seen) most of the time its kids being rambunctious while commuters are used to library-like silence, but there's a handful of times where it has gotten close to fistfighting and the train was stopped while someone went to get a station attendant. Here's hoping that people will use it for the latter more than the former.
But without GSM service it don't help me none, might as well be a PO box.
It's the buses that seem the worst to me. Puberty, numbers, lack of supervision, etc. can be a really scary situation. Every now and then you'll get a bus driver that really knows how to handle them, but I know I couldn't. It makes me want to look up the some of my old middle school bus drivers and send them a bouquet in apology. I did get suspended from my school bus twice in middle school.
General rambunctiousness is to be somewhat expected. That's one thing, but groups of these kids can be downright scary.
While commuting between two of our offices at ~3:00 p.m. earlier this year (at Gallery Place, on the platform), two middle school/high school girls approached me, cornered me (physically between their bodies), and proceeded to stick their hands in my bag/pockets and generally harass me. Few other riders around, but nobody did anything. Sure it was a joke to them, maybe they were trying to steal something (who knows?), but I felt violated just trying to go about my business. After actually *running away*, a train came, and I reported it to the station manager when I got off the train. She said "What do you want me to do about it?" That only frustrated me more. I wrote Metro a complaint and someone replied, and it was nice. I'm glad the new number at least exists. It's now in my phone.
From yesterday, as seen on twitter:
http://twitpic.com/g8ct5
http://twitpic.com/g8d1k
It's not just loud - although they are loud. It's not just profane - although the air turns positively blue when these kids are around.
It's loud, profane, menacing, hostile in word and action. There's also a lot of littering and spitting. It's scary.
If you commute near a school and around 3 pm, it is a pretty big problem. I was at the Columbia Heights Metro about a year ago when a bunch of kids were fighting and then set off some pepper spray in Metro manager's face when he was trying to get them out of the station. I couldn't believe it.
So we call that number and Metro Transit Police comes and shoots the kids?
DC has mandated that if you're a citizen of the city and can spend $800 to obtain a hand gun (great article in the post), you can shoot them. Budget cuts...
Sweet. I just bring my gun from Virginia. Carried concealed of course.
What has this country come to that people actually discuss shooting children for acting up in public? You should be ashamed of yourselves. The only way we, as a Nation, are going to deal with the problems of juvenile delinquency is to take these children under our wings and choke the lousy sumbi**hes with our bare f**king hands until every last drop of life drips from their fat little bodies. Then you hear the death rattle. Finally, we go home and masturbate.
But Monkey, my hands get tired after the first 4 or 5, especially if I'm planning to go home for "special time" after. Couldn't we just give them their own car on each train and then lock the doors from the outside and push it off the 14th St. bridge like a sack of kittens with a brick in the bottom?
Yes, but puppies instead.
Molly!
Well if I had the gun for the kids, I could use it for the deer problem too... and maybe the odd bicyclist who rides on the sidewalk listening to their Ipod.
Would forced tranquilizer injections be out of the question? In that case how about passing these out at the end of the school day:
Drank is the extreme relaxation beverage designed to "slow your roll".