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Police: Woman gets punched in the head for daring to try to move another woman's purse off a Red Line seat

Campbell

Transit Police report arresting a Boston woman on charges she punched a senior citizen in the back of the head for trying to move her purse from a seat on a full Red Line train during rush hour Friday afternoon at Harvard Square - after the woman refused a request to move it.

According to police, Jada Campbell, 23, was sitting in one seat and her purse in another around 5 p.m. when a 71-year-old woman asked her to move the bag so she could sit down:

Campbell refused to do so. The victim then handed the purse to Campbell and was about to take a seat. Campbell became enraged and physically threatened to harm the victim. The victim now in fear for her safety attempted to move away from Campbell. At this time Campbell stood up and with a closed fist struck the victim in the back of her head.

Police say that when officers arrived, Campbell tried to fight them, too, but they proved a bit tougher and were able to arrest her on charges of assault and battery on a person over 60 and resisting arrest. They also charged her with witness intimidation for allegedly threatening both the victim and witnesses for talking to police.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

How is the 71 year woman doing? Poor thing.

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That was disgusting of Campbell to do something like that. The 71 year old woman was within her rights to move Campbell's purse so that she could sit down. I hope Campbell gets tried for, charged with, and jailed for assault.

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The attack was far more than one punch too. She went through hell.

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Nice wig.

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WOOF WOOF WOOF

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Threats and punching aside, my ethical question of the day is: Is it ok to move someone's stuff if you ask them and they refuse?

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I would have just sat down on her bag.

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I think that's a legit question. If someone was enough of a jerk to refuse to move a bag, I'm not sure I'd want to engage them further. OTOH, they should just move their damn bag!!!

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Unless it looks like there is an innocent dog in it.

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Like the etiquette of removing soneone's laundry from the washer or dryer if they"re irresponsible enough to leave it sitting there when it's been done and there are no other machines available?

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I do that. I also don't mind if someone does this to my clothes.

But the equivalent to this train scenario would be moving someone's clothes out of the stopped dryer *while they're standing next to it refusing to take it out*. Once I actually encountered someone rude enough to hog the machine like this -- something about wanting all the machines to stop at the same time or something.

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But your action may have some adverse repercussions.

Usually, I'll stand fast and see if they move the bag. f not, and I'm on the commuter rail, I get the conductor (if there is no more seats available). If someone is still not moving it, I'll say something like "Gee, does your bag have a ticket? No, than please move it." Most people will move the bag on first ask, although I may get what I call the "sighers", those who sigh when asked to move their bags. I usually ask "Is something wrong? I heard you sigh..." just to tweak em.

But most folks are fine. This poor lady just got a bad angry apple.

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One or two angry apples are enough to set the atmosphere and spoil it for others.

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This probably isn't her, but it's the first thing I found when I looked up her unusual name, and it's a great performance.

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Don't shoot me. I'm only the piano player.

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Google says that the pianist was 9 years old in 2009, and age 12 in 2012, making her roughly 18 today. She grew up in, ahem, Parkland, Florida, and as of February 2018 was a music student at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. She has entered, and won, a number of competitions for youth musicians.

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Playing like that means that person has tons of discipline and self-control.

Our local version has neither.

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"Jada Campbell" is an unusual name? Really?

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There are several hundred on Facebook.

Campbell is the 46th most common surname in the US (Newman is 300):
https://names.mongabay.com/most_common_surnames.htm

Jada was in the top 100 first names for girls for several years around the turn of the millennium and has always been in the top 1000:
https://www.behindthename.com/name/jada-1/top

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either in person or in media mention. I'm not even sure how to pronounce it (Jay-duh or Jah-duh?)

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I had a high school friend named Jada, and Will Smith's wife (and actress in her own right) is Jada Pinkett Smith. Usually pronounced "Jade-uh" in my experience.

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Perhaps this incident will result in a law requiring an able-bodied passenger to give up their seat If an elderly or disabled person needs it.

The subway cars have had stickers posted for years next to the seats closest to the doors, asking the person to do the above. Maybe it needs to be mandatory.

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Except the older lady didn't even ask this woman to give up her seat--she asked her to give up her BAG'S seat!!! There shouldn't have to be a law for that...that's just common decency.

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The perpetrator's purse shouldn't have been taking up a seat in the first place, she technically took up two seats, not one.

The senior citizen was correct in asking her to remove the purse.

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Are we going to put T officers on every car to watch for this?

How do you prove that someone's able-bodied vs disabled, especially given that some disabilities aren't visible?

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Yes, some disabilities are not visible.

The stickers at one point, stated: "Please give up this seat if an elderly or handicapped person needs it." I do not know if the stickers (or signs?) today use the exact same wording. I do recall the graphics on the stickers back then had images of a male and female, one had a cane, the other had a crutch.

Perhaps back then, nobody thought or realized that some disabilities are not visible.

I don't believe T officers would be needed, each train car should have cameras that the train personnel can easily view. In an emergency, passengers are to follow the directions of train personnel, so I don't see why a member of the train personnel ordering someone to give up a seat, wouldn't have the same effect as the same directive coming from a T officer.

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I don't believe T officers would be needed, each train car should have cameras that the train personnel can easily view. In an emergency, passengers are to follow the directions of train personnel, so I don't see why a member of the train personnel ordering someone to give up a seat, wouldn't have the same effect as the same directive coming from a T officer.

Really. Implement needless technology (which is expensive and will eventually break) and distract the SOLE operator's attention from running the train. All because a few idiots don't have common courtesy. I suspect the MBTA has much higher priorities for their time and money.

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No one was asked to give up a seat they were sitting in. Unless you think the handbag had a disability and needed to have its own seat?

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Who did the handbag belong to?

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It certainly did not belong to the seat.

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"According to police, Jada Campbell, 23, was sitting in one seat and her purse in another around 5 p.m. when a 71-year-old woman asked her to move the bag so she could sit down"

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The point is that the younger woman acted extremely viciously, especially when she assaulted a much older woman. If enough nasty stuff takes place on the T, well, then maybe it's a good idea to have T officers on every MBTA car.

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Maybe it needs to be mandatory.

And just how you propose such a law actually be enforced?

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There isn't even a law requiring transit systems to provide seating for someone who needs it because of a disability or age. The law just says the transit system has to *ask* someone in priority seating to give it up on request. If the person refuses to get up, the transit system is not in violation.

Good luck explaining this subtlety to an angry bus driver.

I've never understood why. Maybe it's because the person sitting could have an invisible disability. But they could say so if that's the reason they're not getting up.

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Kicked everyone off when nobody would move out of the way to board a chairuser.

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The T's Accessibility FAQ explains why they can't require people to give up seats.

Basically, there are plenty of people with disabilities that aren't visibly obvious, and the T can't reasonably expect people to explain or prove their disabilities when requesting a priority seat. That information is private and personal. That opens it up to exploitation by people who aren't actually disabled. If the T can't require people to prove that they are disabled, then people would abuse the system by claiming they're disabled just to get a seat, or claim they're disabled so they don't have to give up the seat. It opens a huge can of worms for the T.

So the legally safer option is just to rely on basic human decency to get people to give up their seats. The vast majority of the time it works, but of course sometimes it doesn't. If it were legally required, these kinds of incidents would still happen, only the assault would end up happening to a T employee instead or in addition to the requesting passenger. And it would likely delay trains, since there is not usually a T employee on every platform at all times, meaning they'd have to hold the train until a T employee could get there to make the person move.

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The T's Accessibility FAQ explains why they can't require people to give up seats.

IT'S. A. BAG.

BAGS DO NOT HAVE DISABILITIES.

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You might want to re-read the comment I was replying to:

Perhaps this incident will result in a law requiring an able-bodied passenger to give up their seat If an elderly or disabled person needs it.

The subway cars have had stickers posted for years next to the seats closest to the doors, asking the person to do the above. Maybe it needs to be mandatory.

My comment wasn't meant to address this story, but rather the above comment. Which is why I replied to it.

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That opens it up to exploitation by people who aren't actually disabled.

Like the handicapped placards...

So the legally safer option is just to rely on basic human decency to get people to give up their seats.

A few years ago I took the bus from South Station to NYC. I was the last passenger to board. The only remaining seat was next to a young lady, who, as I sat down, immediately protested that "she was saving that seat for her friend" (a/k/a I don't want anyone sitting next to me). Since the bus was already backing out of the bay at that time, it was obvious that her "friend" was imaginary, so I sat down. She immediately started elbowing me several times, grumbling about her "friend." I just looked between the seats and loudly remarked, "Oh, that's where the arm rest is!" She shut up right then and there.

Sometimes, ya gotta push back a little...

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Lowest form of scum imaginable

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Neither the police report nor the Boston Globe article say whether she needed medical attention.

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People need to get out of the habit of placing bags and items on the seat beside them. Even if the train isn't full and there are available seats, it's best not to do it. I frequently see people placing items beside them on a train with available seats and then get so engrossed in their phone they don't notice the train has filled up and their item is taking up the only remaining seat. I also recently saw someone drinking an ice coffee and placing it on the seat beside them between every sip. Dumb.

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Or rather how to behave as a member of civilization, but alas...

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I hate to say it but this is not all that unusual in today's world. This is a clear example of an acute case of self-entitlement that is pervasive in many of today's younger generation.

This young woman is in her early 20s but I have seen similar incidents of many younger kids even down to the middle school level taking such a stance against anyone older than themselves.

I once witnessed a bus load of middle-schoolers on an MBTA bus and several elderly standing huddled at the front and trying to hold on.

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self-entitlement and a lot of pent up anger. Who hits a 70 year old?

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It's always existed, but it's far worse, these days.

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You clearly have never worked in retail or any other customer-facing job if you think the younger generation is more self-entitled.

Try telling a millennial and a baby boomer that they're going to be subjected to a minor inconvenience, and guess which one is more likely to get irrationally upset? The boomer, almost every time.

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Or the Humvee stroller moms. God forbid you ask them to move their stroller when trying to get on or off the train//bus.

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They wouldn't hear you even if you did ask them. They are too busy yakking into phones.

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on their way to pick up their welfare checks...Sorry, someone had to say it...

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period. They take up much too much room on the MBTA trains and buses, particularly during the rush-hours, and people can get hurt if the train or the bus makes a short stop, for whatever reason.

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The rudeness of T passengers never surprises me.

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You need to get out more.

Try drivers around here for starters.

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On the NYC subway there are signs saying that bags cannot be placed on seats "when they affect the comfort of other passengers".

I think that's a good way of putting it.

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Put laser walls that burn you between every seat. This will take care of the manspreaders too.

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Hey BlackKat - are your sexual organs outside of your body? If not, let me explain the "manspreading." Guys have junk sits between their legs. the Twig and Berries, Alan and the Chipmunks, Simba with Timone and Pumbaa, et. al.

Guess what? It's super uncomfortable to crush your junk between your legs when sitting. It also prevents testicles from self-regulating temperature, because they can't dangle any further if they're stuck between two walls of a trash compactor.

So before you wave your flag about 'manspreading' think about basic biology first.

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They must be enormous - grapefruit sized, at least, if not bowling-ball sized. Pretty damn impressive, you must be the envy of the locker room.

Those of us with more normal sized equipment, though, manage to sit on the subway without needing to spread our legs out over two seats. Or do you need to take up three? Wouldn't want those jumbos to be unable to self regulate their temperature, after all.

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Then, hopefully, people will know not to take up more than one seat.

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Unfortunately not all of us are the size of a twig. I'm by no means enormous, but if they put any sort of divider between seats, they would be uncomfortably narrow for myself and many others. I already never sit down when there's only one open seat because I don't want to be squished against other passengers, with my elbows in their sides. T seats are even smaller than airplane seats.

I think they should move in the opposite direction, and stop delineating individual seats - just have one long bench.

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Technically, putting your bag on the seat is taking up more than one seat, for which you can get a ticket in NYC. Ask me how I know (reclining across a row on an empty train at 4am on July 5th, freedom F yeah!).

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Rush hour....

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Oh they did plenty.

They restrained the woman.

They called the cops.

They prevented the perp from escaping.

Also unlikely that they left the elderly woman unattended - that part just doesn't make the story.

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You say it happened. Please explain?

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So the cops use telepathy now?

Someone called them.

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"They restrained the woman."

"They prevented the perp from escaping."

In reality most people keep their heads down and ignore.
I can speculate that because this happened at Harvard station there were detailed officers seconds away. No heroics that we would hope for. Just frightened people being bullied by a jerk.

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It seems like at the very least someone called the police and they told them what they witnessed when they arrived. I'm not sure what else you want them to do. Put her in a choke hold? Force her to write an apology?

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If you're group-shamed, the bad behavior will stop.

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A person who would punch a person for calling out her shitty behavior? No shame at all.

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especially an older person, deserves to get restrained physically, and forced to write an apology, and to serve jail time, to boot. It doesn't matter what ethnicity, race or color they are.

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