Photo by Saito S
Mariana was assaulted on the bus earlier this week, and was brave to share this harrowing tale with us. After Brittney Gilbert’s terrifying recent account, it’s just terrible to hear yet another case of assault. Passengers, be aware of your surroundings.
[Tuesday] after work I hoped on the 49 Muni bus on my way towards the Tenderloin to celebrate a friends birthday. It was 8pm and I got on the bus like I do pretty much everyday of the week.
At Grove and Van Ness, a Hispanic man in his 30s gets on and sits next to me. I am on my iPhone trying to figure out directions to my friend’s place before I realize that this man has his erect penis out and is touching himself while slowly grazing my shoulder with his other hand and looking at me.
I immediately freeze and don’t know what to do. I could reach for my pepper spray. I could shout and yell at him. Instead, I somehow will my legs to move and go to the front of the bus where I promptly inform the bus driver what is happening. He immediately stops the bus (near Eddy and Van Ness) and walks to the back where I told him the guy was located. At this point the guy realizes that I’ve told the bus driver and he jumps up and gets off the bus and runs off towards Eddy and Polk.
I am sitting by myself in the front, shaking and willing myself not to cry. The bus driver apologizes to me and then keeps going. I get off a couple of stops down and still shaking, make my way towards my friend’s house.
We need to be more vocal when we see this stuff happen on the bus. I always thought I was the type of girl who would shout and scream if this happen, but when it happened to me, I was too shocked and scared to make a scene. Anyone else around me could have helped me, but no one did.
Earlier this year, the Bay Citizen reported that sex crimes on public transportation are extremely under-reported. Have you reported crimes on the bus, and how do you react when something like this happens around you?
When I lived in Chicago, something similar was happening on the Blue Line — the man wasn’t touching me, but he was touching himself, etc. My instinct was to move away — to get away — rather than to ask for help or report the man.
I didn’t know what to do. I’m thankful that I wasn’t personally involved more so than seeing it, but I’m not sure what I would have done if I was.
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What should the other passengers have done?
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If they noticed (how could they not?), I’d like to think that someone else would have called the guy out and made him stop immediately, then no one would have let him escape until the police arrive.
That is such a terrifying and disgusting thing to have happened. It would be great if MUNI started an anti-sexual harassment/assault campaign like NY did a few years ago. It would also be great if Holla Back caught on in the Bay Area because god knows we need it.
Last thing–I think it would be more appropriate if the editor’s note read: Passengers, be aware of your surroundings and watch out for one another.
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Called the police? Gone up to the bus driver? Shouted “hey, what the hell are you doing?”
Are you saying that, if you saw a man behaving in such a way on the bus, you’d just turn the other way and ignore it? Seriously?
Why do you even need to ask about what should be done when doing something, anything is a step forward.
It’s crummy enough that a lot of women endure this kind of crap every day on MUNI, it’s worse still that there are people out there who behave as though it’s no big deal or not worth getting involved in because it’s just another gross thing that happens. You have the right to ride public transportation without being sexually assaulted.
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I think you are reading way to much into a simple question. The writer stated that she promptly informed the bus driver. The question merely asks for suggestions about what, in addition, is recommended that other passengers do. Using pepper spray on a crowded bus, as one person suggested for example, would not be a good response. So there is apparently not universal agreement (or even good universal judgment) on what the response should be to indecent exposure on a bus.
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Hey Mariana,
As a fellow survivor of sexual assault/battery, I’m really sorry this happened to you. I’ve read that “freezing” (not doing anything while it’s happening) is a common reaction. Whether it’s psychological or a socially conditioned response I don’t know, but don’t blame yourself for not making a scene because most people react the same way.
It’s possible that nobody saw him doing this, but emphasis should be put on “If you witness it happening, do something” for the other muni riders. Despite having tons of PSAs for graffiti and other relatively petty crimes, muni hasn’t addressed the prevalence of sexual crimes even though I’ve seen tons of reports here.
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Please don’t read this the wrong way. The same thing happened to me on an NYC subway years ago. I was grossed out, but that was the extent of my response. I’m a fairly emotional person ordinarily, but I wasn’t even close to breaking down in tears, nor would I have ever thought to report the episode to any authority. Maybe I was just hardened by NYC, but it seemed like nothing out of the ordinary to me and just another example of the foul side of big-city living.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I saw a guy jerking off on BART one time (pants completely open, penis in full view of every one) and when I called BART police on my cell to report it, they were very diligent about searching the entire train (and by that time I was embarassed to have held up all the other passengers) to find him. Unfortunately, he too, had jumped up and run away. They told me it happens a LOT. Who knew so many people just love to whack it in public (WTF?).
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Tag-His-Twinkie!
Of course this is easy to say after-the-fact, but pepper-spraying the pervert’s penis would have been a reasonable action; particularly if your pepper-spray had UV tracer dye.
There may have been a reasonably good chance that the perv would have sought emergency room treatment, and with a police report he may have been caught.
On the other hand, Muni probably would not have been much help in pursuing prosecution on your behalf.
Now, if SFPD had believed the guy was wielding a deadly weapon, perhaps they would do everyone a favor and shoot the SOB.
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I had a similar incident happen on the 38 Geary which was very crowded that day. I had one of the single seats and a man about 60 was standing next to me in the aisle holding on to the bar. The bus was lurching when it stopped and turned corners so I didn’t notice his erect penis pumping against my shoulder right away. He was staring over the top of my head like nothing was going on and the bus was packed. I reached up with my left hand and grabbed what was annoying me. I squeezed very hard and he stopped. He had tears in his eyes and his knees were starting to buckle. I looked in his eyes and quietly said, “Get off this bus NOW or I’ll keep this as a souvenir.” He staggered toward the front of the bus and got off at the next stop. I haven’t seen him again. By the way, I taught self-protection techniques to women and kids for over 25 years. My solution is not for everyone.
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Love it.
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This has happened to my girlfriend a couple of times:
On the 1 Cal outbound to 33rd – she was with her mom and they saw the guy openly stroking himself, proud – a middle age white guy. They ignored him and he eventually got off the bus.
On the 38 Geary inbound to Transbay – she was seated in the accordion section of the bus and notice a black guy getting closer stroking himself under his baggy jeans – she saw the silhouette of his private.
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A very similar situation happened to me on the 5 Fulton. Once I realized what was happening I was also frozen with fear. I reported the incident, but since I didn’t have the bus number they said there was nothing they could do. It haunted me for months and I was very disappointed with myself for freezing up and not handling the situation better, I could only focus on getting off the bus.
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