Get your Muni Bingo cards ready, folks!
“So this is happening right now: old dude bro rocker strumming acoustically on the 9 while wearing roller blades.” — @anecdotals
Do we have a winner?
Photo by Jeffrey
This is not a fun or pretty story.
I was on the 9, going home after the Giants World Series parade and celebration shortly after 4 p.m. The bus was extremely crowded as expected and the driver kept telling everybody to step back, claiming that there was plenty of room in the back. He was mistaken. He had left the driver’s seat and went outside to direct or cajole the passengers who were boarding at the rear door when I was stepping into the bus from the front door. I paid the fare and walked to an open spot in the front half of the bus.
At a stop on Potrero, a young Hispanic couple stepped off the bus and were followed by a group of riders that numbered at least a dozen. The group of riders attacked the couple, who were shortly down on the sidewalk. [They] surrounded, kicked, and stomped on the prostrate couple in a frenzy of violence. Some of the riders recorded videos on their cellphones. Some people called for emergency assistance. When the beating had concluded, the man was bleeding from his mouth but didn’t seem seriously injured as he was able to get up from the sidewalk. Unfortunately, his lady friend was still down and convulsing. I saw a lot of blood on the sidewalk.
Some of the attackers actually re-entered the bus, expecting it to drive away from the scene. Only after they realized that the driver was waiting for police and ambulance did they exit the bus and disappear into the Potrero Avenue crowd. I remember one of the attackers who returned to the bus had red and white tassels woven into thin dreadlocks. I can’t forget the animated motion of the tassels as the attacker brutally stomped [on the couple].
The San Francisco Police Department summary of the incident reported that there were five suspects — one black man and four black women. The suspects had left the scene; the victims were taken to a local hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Scary stuff to add to this week’s list of bad news in light of the good baseball news. Be careful out there, everyone.
Photo by echoes71
Beth’s ride on the 9-San Bruno took an odd turn the other day after she saw someone scribbling away at the note above. It reads, for the most part:
Skurry. Intriguing.
What’s going on on your Muni rides?
A teenager was shot while riding the bus through Visitacion Valley, SFWeekly‘s Erin Sherbert reports.
At about 1:40 p.m., the shooter boarded the Muni bus and walked to the back of the coach where the 17-year-old victim was sitting. The suspect pulled out a handgun and shot the boy in the chest multiple times, according to police.
The shooter quickly hopped off the bus, and fled on foot. The victim was taken to San Francisco General Hospital where he is suffering life-threatening injuries, said Officer Albie Esparza.
KTVU reports that the victim was shot as he was exiting the bus:
Witnesses told police the suspect got on a Muni 9-San Bruno bus and got into a verbal confrontation with the victim, who was riding the bus at the time, [police spokesman Officer Carlos] Manfredi said.
Then, as the victim exited the rear of the bus, the suspect opened fire from the bottom step of the rear bus doors and then ran away. He was last seen running north on Garrison Avenue, according to Manfredi.
Muni officials handed over the video surveillance footage to the SFPD – the gang taskforce will be reviewing the footage, KTVU reports. If you have a tip for the SFPD about this shooting, the SFPD tip line is 575-4444.
@Smiffleblurf says, “Help! I’m on the 9 San Bruno and this lady blocked my seat with her 5ft tall wall of smelly trash. Phew!”
There really is no getting used to the smells aboard a Muni vehicle, is there?
Photo by KayVee.Inc
I have lived in San Francisco for three years. I have spent a fair amount of time on all the Bay Area’s transit systems, especially Muni. Most of the stories I would come home with or show up to work with were, like most of the entries found here, on the humorous side. But the story I feel compelled to tell is the most difficult, and the least funny. In a single 20-minute ride on the 9-San Bruno, I was forced to face my own demons.
Ever since I moved to San Francisco, I’ve been working primarily with populations at “high-risk” for HIV infection. I moved here specifically to do that. I worked with sex workers, drug addicts, transgender people, the young, the old, the depressed, the maniacal, the apathetic, and the lonely. I worked with people just like me. I worked with people totally unlike me. I was good at this work, and I cared about people. At least, that was how I’d always imagined it.
For a 4-month period, I was working at SF General in the Urgent Care Clinic offering HIV testing and counseling to people in the waiting room there. I did this in the mornings, and had to commute downtown to my other job on 4th and Market at about 2 p.m. every day. I took the 9-San Bruno bus, every day, from SF General to 4th and Market.
One particular ride, when the bus was just as crowded as always, I got on and stood in the aisle near the front. In less than a minute, I was acutely aware of some of the people around me on the bus. Right behind me, a couple on some speedy drug talked very openly about their next score.
“We already hit him up last week, we should try Ronny.”
“How much you get from him last time?”
They picked and tapped and shuffled and chatted as speedsters do. Even though they were loud, much harder to ignore was a girl about my age sitting right in front of me, silent. Bandaged thoroughly at both wrists, one of which was still seeping blood into the bandage. She was hard to ignore because from the moment I stepped on the bus, she stared right into me. I had to look down at her to make eye contact and when I did, I immediately had to look away. Her eyes were literally filled with tears. And she just kept staring at me. (more…)