Grr. Maybe the rest of you will think this is small potatoes - and I’m pretty sure it happens everywhere, every day - but this pissed me right off, so I’m ranting.
I was riding home on the light rail yesterday when four kids got on. Three looked to be junior high age (all under 5’) and the fourth was probably in high school. They were chanting a rap song at the top of their lungs. As far as I could tell, the lyrics consisted entirely of variations on “shit fuckin’ bitch” and other such pleasantries. I have no problem with well-placed profanity, but this was not it. They sat in the very back row of the car, right behind me.
A middle-aged guy two rows in front of me told them to knock it off. They immediately started cursing him out. “Shut the fuck up, old man!” “Fuck off!” “You can suck my dick!” This is all from kids too young to shave, who seem to think they can bully adults in public.
The guy continued to tell them to knock it off, that their behavior was unacceptable, and there was no reason for them to behave that way. He spoke in a normal tone of voice and didn’t swear, as far as I could tell. The older kid jumped in on it and asked if he had a fuckin’ problem, and if so, if he ‘wanted to go’. Five minutes into the exchange, the four kids started throwing pieces of trash at the guy. I did not want to be in the middle of that, so I got up and moved. So did three or four other people in that seating area.
That train is equipped with intercoms in the handicapped seating area for the wheelchair-bound to let the driver know when they need extra time to disembark. I walked to the nearest one - maybe fifteen feet from the little shits - hit the button, and loudly told the driver that he was within a hair of having a fight in the back of his train, and could security please meet us at the next stop?
The older kid promptly sat on the younger ones. I’m not sure if the swearing stopped, but the volume went way down and they stopped throwing stuff. The older kid appeared to have a calm conversation with the middle-aged guy until the next stop. I did overhear one of the little shits asking the bigger kid ‘what they should do about that interfering bitch’ while trying to throw intimidating stares in my direction. The bigger kid shook his head and told the kid to drop it.
There was indeed a security officer waiting at the next stop. The kids got off the train and nearly ran for the stairs. It was my stop too, so got off the train. I stayed near the security guard until the kids were down at the bus bays. I told him what I’d observed and apologized for possibly overstating the situation, but it seemed to be the best way to make the kids back down. He thanked me and said that that behavior ‘was not welcome here’, and he’d tell them to get off the property. When I left (taking the long way around to avoid any chance of the little shits trying to corner me), he was doing just that.
So I guess the system worked. I have serious doubts that those kids will learn anything from it, though. I wish there were a legal allowance for thrashing kids like that. I really do.