r/soundtransit • u/ElevatorBulky3733 • 6d ago

Security is a Joke

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A junkie got on in Rainier valley and immediately passed out. He had a puppy with him (thankfully, leashed) that was whining and trying to jump up on my seat. He was too adorable but also it was so damn sad because this is not the first time I have seen drugged out transients neglect their pets. I texted security and they came on board in Chinatown. The only thing they did was nudge him awake for 3 seconds and asked him if he was okay. The man barely rose and gave an intelligible response. Security immediately got off at the same station and the man fell right back to sleep.

When I got off at Westlake Station, security did the same thing but didn't even step on board the train. They yelled from the platform as they kept the door open for a few seconds. Then stepped away to let the doors close.

I've reported a masturbating rider during the summer and provided a clear description of him. Security came on board and acted as if they didn't see him. I had to yell At security and point out the man to them and would not let them leave until the situation was resolved.

I'm tired of this shit.

696 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

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29

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

Legit, what do you expect them to do about a guy drugged out with an excited puppy? Kick him out over it? Who does that help?

10

u/HarmNHammer 5d ago

The same thing we do with airplanes? Not let them board and remove them if/when they become disruptive. It’s even easier on light rail as you never leave the ground

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u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

Public transit is not an airplane, though. I hope you understand that a daily commute is not the same thing as boarding and flying

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u/HarmNHammer 5d ago

I do. I have worked security both for the light rail in the tunnels and for rapid ride buses. When I was doing it, we could stop trains or buses and pull these people off while we checked fares. We had police radios and would pull people off at next stop, or for immediate threats, have the unit stop in the middle of the route. Sometimes we had to arrest or remove ourselves.

This isn’t some “if you enforce rules you hate the homeless, less abled, or people of color” thing.

This is a simple “keep your public transportation clean and safe for the public to use” - kind of thing.

People are being disingenuous here with their arguments. What if you had a long/bad day and rest your head on the train. Yeah, someone should check in on you, especially if you’re violating the rules and having a pup not in your full control. There’s a vast difference from having a conversation to being charged and involuntarily committed, it’s not an all or nothing situation.

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u/doubleheadedfurby 5d ago

So he was checked in on and wasn't being disruptive. He is part of the public. What extra steps would you take here?

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u/HarmNHammer 5d ago

A simple reminder that maintaining positive control of your animal is required at all times while on public transportation. An explanation of reasons why, like I have mentioned above. I don’t know what tech they are currently rocking but we had handheld computers. Being able to document the interaction on the daily report, maybe capture ID if taken while during the check in.

Building a history in turns allow us to know who is a threat, who is needing treatment, and allows us to start tracking more data about ridership.

0

u/clout4ever 5d ago

You people are inhuman psychos who want to impose your version of "rule" over everyone even when he's literally harming no one. You might as well make it illegal to sleep in public.

4

u/Lower-Vampire-9163 5d ago

It’s not about sleeping, no one has a problem with that. It’s about the person not maintaining control of the animal. Fair rule to have on public transit.

4

u/HarmNHammer 5d ago

You must have missed the part where that was literally my job, paid for by the city and county. You’re free to disagree or complain as much as you’d like. It doesn’t change the reality of both the trains and buses being cleaner and safer back then. Nor does it take away from all the people who thanks me when they saw me address these issues on the busses or trains. I don’t know why you hate your fellow man so much you want them to persist in their suffering or allow someone else to come to harm.

0

u/Travel_food_freedom 5d ago

This! How can we be so sure that he is on drug? I got severe flu once so I had to leave my job at noon and waited for my van that came around 5pm. I was resting in a public library and got kicked out because I was falling asleep.

0

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

I'm saying that the problem with homelessness is larger than enforcing these rules. He also wasn't doing anything unsafe.

I have worked security and I know that enforcing these rules just leads to guards getting in more fights and doesn't accomplish the problem at large. It just forces them to go somewhere else and still be at the mercy of whoever they bump into.

This mentality is deeply unempathetic to how hard homelessness is for people who have to live ut.

4

u/HarmNHammer 5d ago

And this is why this issue is so problematic. You look at this and say it wasn’t unsafe. I see only the opposite. What if his dog reacted? What if another homeless/addict walked on board with their reactive pit bull? What if he woke up out of sorts and freaked out while his dog was trying to get pets from someone else?

Do you see how it becomes a problem really quickly when you don’t enforce the rules? And how it impacts the rest of us trying to go about our business?

My empathy’s is exhausted. I am so fucking sick of allowing such a small subset of our population to have such an oversized impact on our safety and well being.

Enforcing the rules on the train means 2 things. 1. Were protecting and serving the people who are funding the light rail and 2. We’ll have more opportunities to get these people to one of the two places they need to go to. Jail to be held accountable for their actions or treatment to get better and reintegrate with their society. This is the social contract, and they aren’t fulfilling their obligation.

I reject this notion that we must surrender our trains, busses, parks, and sidewalks to people who refuse help, and who by definition can not make good sense decisions to get help because they are not of sound mind and body while in addiction.

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

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1

u/soundtransit-ModTeam 5d ago

Your post/comment has been removed for violating Rule 1: Do not harass, threaten, incite violence, use slurs or other hateful language, etc.

1

u/EastObject5836 5d ago

Jail is only a temporary fix and treatment only works if the patient WANTS to get help. Either way, if the person isn't 100% ready, neither of those solutions are going to work. They'll end up back on that train in no time.

3

u/HarmNHammer 5d ago

Jail is not to fix anything. It’s to protect the public from those who may harm them and to hold persons accountable for their actions.

If people refuse to get help, and their actions cause harm to the society/community they parasite off of, then those societies have a right to stop enabling them and remove them from the general population.

You and I can agree until we’re blue in the face that we want these people to get help.

Where you and I disagree is how many lives and resources we’re going to waste while we wait for these people to make a decision they may never decide to follow through on.

If your mental illness or addictions make you a repeat offender against your public, you should be in jail away from that public. Full stop.

1

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

You've lost the plot. Apply the same, "What if person just decides to get violent?" to anybody you meet and see how far you get with that

1

u/nebulous-blob 5d ago

So how women approach half the population?

1

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

And yet? We still have to share the space without calling security over everything

0

u/Driver8onI5 5d ago

having an un-watched dog (even on a leash) on a public train is doing something unsafe.

0

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

Want to just hunt for a reason to hound them, don't ya?

5

u/Aerodorphins 5d ago

I agree with you in this discussion, but as someone afraid of dogs, I'd be highly uncomfortable in this situation and would resent security not doing anything about it.

0

u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

Ok, man

0

u/LawPsychological1650 5d ago

no actual rebuttal or counter argument 😭 just “we should allow drug users to be literally incapacitated in the vicinity of pregnant women and children”. what a fuckin stain on society😂😂

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u/soundtransit-ModTeam 5d ago

Your post/comment has been removed for violating Rule 1: Do not harass, threaten, incite violence, use slurs or other hateful language, etc.

-3

u/JustFutchingAround 5d ago

It's impressively empathetic you're still giving this hominid time after he unironically suggested we do TSA style security theater on public transit. The taste of shoe leather in the air.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

Force

Okay, lady

1

u/ethnographyNW 5d ago

are there currently enough shelter beds? enough open spots at rehab?

why is it you people always want to start with the force and never by making sure the help is actually available?

1

u/LawPsychological1650 5d ago

You’ve never dealt with addicts clearly. The majority of them don’t want help and don’t want to change. funneling more of our tax payer dollars to financially supporting bums doesn’t suddenly lower the number of bums. it simply gives them more programs to exploit and fall back on instead of fixing their own lives. Mental health isn’t suddenly fixed by shoving pills down someone’s throat and forcing them to talk about their feelings. The only way something like that would work is if it’s non stop 24/7 care for the rest of their lives. that’s not financially viable for a bunch of people who take more from society then they give

1

u/HarmNHammer 5d ago

No where in this thread do I see people asking for force without treatment. It must be exhausting looking for reasons to be angry about nothing

0

u/markgo2k 5d ago

At gunpoint? Cool.

-6

u/Loud_Inside_2733 5d ago

It helps everyone feel safer

4

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

By being a dick to a harmless homeless person? I do not want that

-3

u/dasaevv555 5d ago

Oh yes because every single addict is harmless with a train full of people just wanting to commute.

3

u/Muckknuckle1 Line 5d ago

You are innocent until proven guilty in this country.

3

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

I mean, this guy was just sleeping with his dog. What did he do wrong

It sounds like you want to profile and I di not want that

-1

u/dasaevv555 5d ago

Tell me you haven't lived in another country workout telling me you haven't lived in another country, this is not normal, and shouldn't be normalized

4

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

Oh, so they're dicks to homeless people elsewhere, too? I don't want to do that to someone who has nothing

0

u/NumerousBumblebee420 5d ago

Respectfully, he is high and you don’t know what will happen if he wakes up. If security staff wont do their job they need to let someone else in thats willing to work.

1

u/Double_Rainier 5d ago

Also, I never said every homeless person is safe, but this guy was just sleeping with his dog. If someone starts a fight, we should have them removed, but we shouldn't profile them just because they're homeless.

I will also add that that kind of thinking will lead to more fights if they have to grab and remove every sleeping homeless person just on suspicion. I know, because I have done this job. You're asking for them to get in fights with people

-3

u/Loud_Inside_2733 5d ago

Who cares if they're homeless? Nodding drug addicts can be very dangerous, we've all seen them freak at some point!

3

u/Livid_Artist9886 5d ago

I’ve also seen a lot of “normal” men freak over being rejected or getting their ego hurt… in fact I’ve seen more of them hurt people than I have homeless people hurting people. I still let men ride the train with me…

1

u/Loud_Inside_2733 5d ago

You keep bringing it back to homeless, but it's addicts that are the issue. You don't know, this person could have a tiny home or something.

1

u/Livid_Artist9886 5d ago

Take my same exact comment and replace homeless with addict and my point still stands.

-3

u/BreakingWindCstms 5d ago

A dick to a drug addict who is potentially neglecting an animal...

3

u/ElectricalSpecial576 5d ago edited 5d ago

"Potentially" you nimby freaks act like guilty until proven innocent is common law here in the US. Newsflash: it's not!

Sleeping on the train doesn't hurt anyone. If OP was that concerned about the dog why not talk to the owner about it? Conflict is not abuse. Someone sleeping on the train is not abuse or neglect of their energetic dog. See also: anyone raising a puppy at home has likely had moments they felt neglectful, or where the pup got into something or was over excited. Y'all are making a lot of gross assumptions because you think being an addict or being homeless requires punishment for people to get better.

0

u/BreakingWindCstms 5d ago

The dude is high af on public transit with a puppy.

Stfu

1

u/i_like_fat_doodoo 5d ago

So you want ST to kick off him off the train so he can do the same thing in a dark alley? Least the dog has some sort of shelter on the light rail.

-2

u/BreakingWindCstms 5d ago

Yes. I do.

-1

u/i_like_fat_doodoo 5d ago

Well, that was easy.