Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Just received this via email from Kiley McEvoy:
Saw this on my way home at about 5:55 PM today
Sorry I don’t have any other info, but the pics pretty much tell the story.
And this tweet from @ewindram fills in some clues:
I feel terrible for the elderly driver who accidently turned onto the muni tracks at san jose/mission 🙁
If you saw this, please comment, and if you’ve got pics or videos, email or otherwise send it in!
I was on an outbound 24 Bus this afternoon. Fairly empty. As we zig-zagged from 30th to Mission to Cortland, there seemed to be an agitated passenger bugging the driver. Well, that’s how it looked from the back of the bus where I couldn’t exactly hear the words the guy was saying.
He was yelling, “Hurry up!” presumably at the traffic in front of us, then he leaned across the driver and HONKED THE HORN. I thought (in a selfish muni-riding way) “Oh crap, now we’ll be delayed while the driver deals with this nut.”
Alas, I misread the situation. The nutty guy turned out to be a friend of the busdriver and he was just goofing around. OK! Friends of the driver can honk the horn, check. Also, he dialed a phone and handed it to the driver to talk on.
Here’s the driver on the phone:
Photo by Flickr user Anna Conti
(see updates below the fold)
Original post: So I’m submitting this on behalf of a friend who is mortified by this and doesn’t want to relive the experience. Three times now she’s encountered this guy on the N Judah who likes to grind on women on crowded N-Judah trains. She calls him, “the Muni humper.”
Twice now he’s humped on her and once she witnessed him humping the shoulder of a woman who was sitting down. Once this guy notices his hump victim is on to him, he quickly gets off the train.
She describes him as young, short, “kind of squatty,” and said that each time she saw him he was wearing a baseball hat and a T-shirt with anime or some sort of T.V. characters on it. Oh, and he seems to like to strike during the evening rush hour. All you shoulders out there, beware!
Photo by Flickr user omar nyc
(SFist picked this story up [thanks, guys!], so check there for extra, oh-so-enlightening comments. More comments at NBC Bay Area‘s site and N Judah Chronicles.)
Update 3: NBC Bay Area ran the story, including an interview with commenter Amanda.
Update 2: It’s Friday now, nearly two full days since we first posted, and man does this story have legs. NBC reports that not only has SFMTA opened an investigation (see comments, below), but that the SFPD issued a statement on this perp:
SAN FRANCISCO POLICE SEEKING PUBLIC’S HELP IN LOCATING SEXUAL BATTERY SUSPECT
The San Francisco Police Department is seeking the public’s help in attempting to locate Municipal Transit riders who have been victims of a sexual battery. On the morning of May 8, a witness reported seeing the suspect rubbing his pelvis against a woman on the inbound N-Judah line. The victim in the incident has not been identified. The witness also saw the suspect on the outbound N-Judah the same evening. The suspect got off the train at the Powell Street Station. The witness reported the incident to police.
The suspect is described as a Hispanic male, early 20s, 6’, 250 lbs, mustache and goatee with long cornrows on the side of his head down to the collar. He was last seen wearing a black jacket, jeans, and had earrings in both ears.
It is believed that the same suspect has been committing similar sexual batteries that have not been reported. Anyone who has been the victim of this or other incidents should contact the police as soon as possible. Most Muni vehicles are equipped with surveillance video.
For more information please contact:
Public Affairs Office
553-1651
Hear that? The police want you to come forward if you’ve witnessed or been a victim of this lunatic. No need to even go anonymous here. Just please step forward with the authorities, and perhaps we can bring this person to justice and all feel a little better about riding Muni again.
Update 1:
This picture just arrived in our inbox from Amanda, along with the following note:
Hi there,
For the “Hump-and-Run on the N-Judah” article I have a picture of this guy. He did this to me one day and then I actually saw him on the N the very next day. What are the odds? He was wearing the same shirt and still blasting his music from his speakerphone. I took a picture with my phone – not the best quality but at least you can see what he looks like. I couldn’t find a place to post the picture with my comment but my friend Kenneth gave me this email address and told me to send it over to you.
Thanks!
Amanda
[photo removed due to pending court matters]
So, Mr. Shoulder-Lover: Is this you? We’d love to hear from you, assuming you’re literate. (-Jeff)
This happened to me about a week ago. I was running late for work so I hopped on to the last 9X running before it switched to a BX/AX. We were doing fine until the bus started to stall on the 101 going north, then it stopped! From there on we went coasting down the exit with our engine off.
We finally got to the stop after the 101 when the bus driver decided to try to turn the bus on. It worked for a few seconds, then it died on us. So everyone had to get out and wait for the next bus, mind you I was running very late so this was not good to me, But luckily, another 9X arrived a few minutes later, so everyone hopped on this bus and I proceeded to go to the back. I found a seat in the rear of the bus, so I sat down only to find out that the girl in front of me was throwing up. Somehow she got her boyfriend to open the emergency window so she could puke out the window as the bus was going. I’m afraid to say she didn’t always make it outside the window. After moving a few seats away from them, I noticed that the floor had a liquid that was coming from the girl’s direction, Not knowing what it was I just kept my feet up. Eventually they got off and everyone avoided the area. I’m not sure what the Muni driver did about clean up, but every time I hop on the rear of a Muni bus, I look out to see if that seat is the one she threw up on.
More photos after the jump:
Last night, we spotted a tweet that read thusly:
@NextMuni iPhone app shut down by Muni today. Thanks for taking away the only decent transit app for SF, Muni. Genius, as usual.
We retweeted, adding a “wha?” before the RT text.
Oh boy did we wake up to a storm this morning. I’ll spare the details, but a barrage of tweets came our way, saying this and that about what iPhone apps were working, what was taken down, and who was responsible. Soon enough, the message distilled itself a little, and most fingers pointed toward NextBus.com. So I got on the ol’ email machine and touched base with the kind gents over there at NextBus.com, and here’s what they had to say:
NextBus Inc did not ask MuniTime.com to take down their website. A separate company claiming ownership rights over the data did. We have asked the developer of MuniTime.com to clarify this situation on their website and they agreed to do so ASAP.
Still not sure who or what asked MuniTime to take down their service. When/if we get word, we’ll pass it along to you.
But the lesson here (which is one we could stand to learn from, to be sure) is: Watch what you tweet.
Good day.
This story is by Janell
So I’m riding Bart from the Powell St. station down to Millbrae. As you could imagine it was pretty packed and standing room only. Out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of quite possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen anywhere.
A woman had pulled her 3- or 4-year-old son’s pants down, pulled his little wee out, unscrewed the top of a soda bottle, stuck the little boys wee inside and then told him to pee.
The little boy stood there peeing inside of this soda bottle on a FULL train.
When the boy was done the woman put the cap back on the bottle, set it on the floor of the train, and then got off the train at the next stop.
Yes, she left the pee-filled bottle sitting on the floor.
If you’ve got a BART or Muni story you want to share, no matter what it’s about, send it us.
Photo by Flickr user Lady Ema