Passersby contacted this site about a suspicious occurrence on a platform at the Lafayette BART in what was first believed to be one of several testy confrontations in the 24/680 lately – but which turned out to be something other than first described.
It turns out several riders joined in on a tug-of-war struggle to reclaim luggage allegedly taken by a suspect standing with other passengers on the platform at around 10:15 a.m. Sunday.
Riders said the alleged thief attempted to grab a suitcase from a male victim who resisted – taking a punch to the face for his efforts. The tussle ensued with other riders jumping in and eventually managing to regain control of the contested suitcase.
The unidentified male victim suffered a minor facial injury, passengers said. The unidentified suspect was arrested by either BART or Lafayette police, it was not immediately clear, and was allegedly discovered to be in possession of suspected rock cocaine and a crack pipe. He was reportedly booked at the Martinez Detention Facility for attempted robbery, possession of narcotics, and paraphernalia.
The victim was treated at the scene – and left with his luggage.
I’m sorry to say, with the poor record of the BART, it was probably the Lafayette Police that saved the day. Bart has a real problem with crime and as you may have heard recently, there’s been a big cover-up trying to hide the identity of the criminals for social justice reasons. The thing is, that’s not going to stop the crimes and fare paying riders are getting mad!
Good on the bystanders and police for handling this – hope this person never finds their way back. Crackheads robbing people on a Sunday morning? What is going on in Lafayette these days?? I’ve noticed an increased presence of SF-type street people wandering around downtown lately… We need to nip this in the bud before we end up like Walnut Creek
Thank you to our Lafayette police.
I get it that a thief will steal anything, but luggage is pretty foolish. Unless you’re looking to wear another mans clothes, you’re not going to get much. You’re better off with his wallet, which is probably easier to steal.
It’s nice that others helped him, and the thief didn’t succeed.
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Greg T, it is obvious that African Americans commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes in America, but it is unclear whether constantly pointed that fact out (by listing the perps’ race in stories lie this) does any good. I’ve come around to the view that is probably does more harm than good.
I mean, you would be rational to feel a little bit more fear of a black teen versus a white teen on BART (if you knew nothing else about either of them), but, in either case, the rational amount of fear to feel (on an absolute basis) is pretty close to zero unless the person does something overtly threatening. In such case, the additional information in the person-specific behavior drowns out the initial data based on group membership.
To illustrate: almost all violent offenders are men, but almost no men are violent offenders.
@Chris: Are you suggesting that racial stereotyping is counter productive or ineffective for the general citizenry while it IS effective for law enforcement? I thought you believed that profiling was rationale for law enforcement. I could be wrong. (I often am).
@ Raised in Laf: Walnut Creek has kind of put a welcome mat out for these San Francisco street urchins by the city funding outreach programs for them. Not saying we shouldn’t help people but it does attract them. Word on the street is also that people in SF are burned out on constantly helping them…so now in suburbia they find a fresh group of naive new people to sponge from. Most of you probably don’t know it, but all the street people in the city get over $400 a month in general assistance from San Francisco. There are plenty of services there and in Concord and I think Lafayette residence need to say no.
Walnut Creek should have said no but now they’ve got a bum at every corner to. We don’t go there anymore.
@David: Yes. Sort of. I think law enforcement should be able to use rational shortcuts / hunches as long as they immediately use person-specific info when it is available (I strongly suspect, on no actual data, that most cops already do this). This would go for age, gender, attire, grooming, visible gang/prison tattoos, race, speech patterns, education level, whatever. I mean, in the real world, how could it be otherwise? There is a tangible benefit that justifies the risks: we gotta catch bad guys.
I just think announcing the race of the already-detained suspects (as I thought Greg T was arguing for) creates too much risk of reenforcing stereotypes while providing very little social benefit (cops already have the guy).
Also, the general public is terrible at assessing small risks. The predictable overreaction (to shining a spotlight on the dramatic differences in violent crime rates for different races) seems counterproductive to me— but that is just my opinion. I certainly don’t think the government should tell the media that they MAY NOT report true facts.
The race of ALL suspects should be named. It always has (and always will be) listed as a “description.” Gender, race, age, height and weight. There is NOTHING wrong with that. If criminals don’t like it, they can quit committing crimes. If others don’t like, quit stereotyping or worse – quit discriminating.
As far as who’s hanging out in what city – it’s a FREE COUNTRY. If my life ever boils down to worrying about who’s hanging out where – hopefully I’d have too much on my plate to care.
News24/680 readers complain Lafayette will be the next Walnut Creek. Claycord readers – Concord will become the next Pittsburg or Antioch. Antioch residents – the whole city is on Section 8 or an Obama phone.
Thanks for the chuckle…
If somebody ever steals my luggage, I hope they do it on the trip home. It’ll save me from having to do laundry.
@Tom – Putting that one down for Comment of the Week status. We know what you mean, this little gambit wasn’t the best thought out crime we’ve seen lately…