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Mask hater attacks senior at State Street T stop, tries to drag her to the tracks, police, witnesses say
By adamg on Fri, 02/23/2024 - 9:20am
A man screaming about masks attacked a 69-year-old woman at the State Street Orange Line stop Wednesday afternoon, ripping her mask off, knocking her to the floor and trying to drag her to the tracks before a bystander intervened, Transit Police and WBZ report.
Police say the man, 33, attacked the woman "without warning or provocation," around 1:30 p.m. WBZ interviewed the bystander, who reported that as he was dragging the woman, the man was yelling about how this is America and we don't need masks.
Police did not identify the man. Boston Municipal Court records show that Ivan Joel Herrero, 33, was arraigned yesterday on a charge of assault and battery on a person over 60.
Innocent, etc.
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Comments
Bring back the asylums
Unchecked mental illness no doubt molded and encouraged by online (and cable news) conditioning. The amount of people walking around out there on a day to day basis with no ability to self-regulate their behavior and unfettered access to "distress causing information of their choice" is wild. At some point society needs to start pulling these people out of their day to day communities, cut them off from the internet, and keep them somewhere until they balance back out. Society can't function when everyday people fear for their lives stepping out of the door.
Please explain
Were asylums effective for treating mental illness or did they just lock away stuff that you didn't want to see?
Also explain: how did the existence of asylums prevent the insane crime wave that peaked when they were still open?
Hint: it wasn't the closing of the asylums that caused this issue - it was the complete and total failure of all politicians and the general public to fund the promised community-based alternatives.
Were asylums effective for
Probably not, but they were extremely effective at preventing their inhabitants from pushing innocent strangers in front of subway trains.
Isn’t the rate of violent crime pretty much a straight function of the percentage of the population that is between 15 and 25 years of age?
Some info
Mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence than they are to be violent - and they are not significantly more prone to violence than the general population on the whole (particularly when you control for neighborhood of origin). Drugs are the big amplifying factor regardless of baseline mental health status: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/04/ce-mental-illness
It is a very dubious assertion that asylums prevented violent crime, especially when you consider how many became safe spaces for violent and sadistic criminals who earned their paychecks within their walls.
Again the problem isn't a lack of asylums - THE PROBLEM IS THE LACK OF ANY RATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM.
TL/DR: There is a problem, but asylums don't fix the problem by moving it from view.
Mentally ill people are more
"Mentally ill people" is a hugely broad category, and nobody reasonable is suggesting that mentally ill people should be locked up simply for being mentally ill. On the other hand, people with a documented history of violent behavior do need to be kept physically separate from the rest of us.
If you want to reduce violent
If you want to reduce violent crime, protect children from lead. Getting rid of leaded gasoline helped a lot, but lead is getting into the drinking water again.
Getting lead out of the drinking water is the sort of public health action that people can overlook. It doesn't fix anything overnight, and it's less visible than vaccination or inspecting meat packing plants, but it works: you get smarter children, and then smarter adolescents and adults, and people with better impulse control.
You ain't wrong
Multi-factor causal analysis is really difficult, but I do wonder how much societal misery of the middle to late 20th century can be directly attributable to lead. I suspect it's a lot.
Thank you Michael
You seen something and did something and saved an elderly womans life. You are the hero that Boston needs after a rash of unprovoked attacks on the T.
70 years on the T
I am around the same age as the victim in this attack. I have been riding the T since I was a kid in the 50s, mostly on the Red Line. I hope the victim is going to be ok.
It seems to me that the number of crazies/drug addicts/violent people/a-holes, etc. on the T is worse than ever. Just in this month I've seen a crazy guy yelling that he had a knife, another guy who literally smelled like a toilet that has never been flushed, a white woman yelling disgusting racial slurs at a black guy (who laughed her off), and several guys and women yelling at random people on subway platforms. Smoking and vaping is a common occurrence in the stations and on the trains. Fare jumping is even more common. Drug addicts nodding off on the trains and platforms is also common. And I see lots of angry people having angry conversations on the phone on the platforms and in the trains.
I rarely see Transit police, but when I do, they ignore "minor" violations like smoking and fare jumping, even when it occurs right in front of them. The red jacket ambassadors" also want no part of any confrontation or enforcement.
And add to all that the slow zones, breakdowns, reduced frequency of trains, and other delays.
One thing has improved. I used to see a lot more drunks. I still see them but not as much. Perhaps society is moving away from alcohol in favor of other drugs.
Now I'm off to an appointment. I'm taking the T. Wish me luck!
yup
Been riding for 22 years now.. and vagrants and annoying people are getting worse and increasing in numbers. Both the people themselves and the craziness that surrounds them.
But its not the T's fault really. It's..
Too many homeless people, not enough housing and shelters
Too many addicts, but not enough treatment centers
Too many folks with mental issues, but not enough professionals to help (let alone insurance!)
Its just getting worse and worse. Especially in the past 3-5 years. The pandemic really brought this all out or made it worse or something.
I'm a daily T rider, and since September I have witnessed...
Multiple People urinating or defecating on mbta property, whether it be on the platform, fare lobby, bus loop or whatever. So many now just whip it out and piss. And they are not being discreet about it.. like I can see their banana. #gross
Multiple Fights. Either teenagers or homeless/drug addicts fighting. Everything from screaming matches to drop down, drag by the hair fighting.
Teenagers. I often have to cover for a coworker who works 2nd shift, and late night.. the teens take over alot of the downtown stations. Large swarms of them jumping faregates and taking over the stations. Loud music, dancing.. chasing each other. Annoying passengers.
Drug activity. Whether it be people nodding off, or actual shooting up on the platforms. (those are always fun to see)
Beggars. It used to be they would only harass you in the un-paid areas (i.e. bus loops, out front, etc). Now.. they are on the platforms and inside the trains. Walking up to each person asking for money. And for me, who wears sunglasses and headphones.. they wave in front of me or get very close to get my attention.. just to ask. They are just getting very very ballsy. A day does not go by now where I am not asked for money inside a paid area on the T.
Just general people acting nutty. Just last weekend I was walking to the bus stop and a bus was there waiting with the door opened. Just as I walked on, the driver is like "I'm not leaving until T police arrive to remove this passenger" and he points to this women at the front of the bus who immediately started screaming this rampage in spanish about how we were all sinners because we didn't let Jesus Christ into our hearts.. over and over and over again. Oh and yeah, she was begging for money too. Thankfully another 111 pulled up seconds later..
But its not even that.. the PASSENGERS are getting bad. General courtesy and etiquette is gone now. People hog seats with bags, don't give up seats for old folks & ppl with kids, strollers blocking everything, smelly people, passengers throwing trash everywhere.. and my fav.. scrolling thru instragram and/or having a FaceTime conversation with no headphones. I was on the 111 yesterday evening in a packed-to-the-gills bus in non moving traffic with several people doing this on the bus. I wanted to open the emergency window behind me and throw myself off the new Washington Street bridge.
No one gives a shit about anyone else around them anymore. It was almost bearable pre-pandemic, but now.. its so bad. So so bad.
And I echo.. there's no T police. I can't recall in recent months where I've seen a TPD officer anywhere inside a station. Yeah 10 of them around cruisers parked on city hall plaza outside Gov't Ctr.. but it's never where the passengers are.
And its not really the red shirt folks job to deal with crime. I mean they can call TPD (they have mobile devices & access to the courtesy phone at the station). But at their pay rate, I wouldn't bother either.
It's why I laughed when I read this long article from our friends over at Cambridge Day about the up and coming new fare system will now employ new people as 'fare validators' that can and will issue citations. These people will be seperate from T police. All I can say is "Good luck with that".