San Francisco Transit Refuses to Release Robbery Videos Over Fears of Racism
Political correctness > safety.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) authority has decided not to release surveillance videos of robberies occurring at BART stations for fear they videos might incite racism.
People have begun to fear for their safety due to the numerous crimes, but fears of stereotyping have taken priority with BART officials.
According to CBS SF Bay Area, three different incidents are in question:
April 22: Forty to sixty kids boarded a train at the Coliseum stop and robbed seven passengers, beating up two;
June 28: A group of four kids assaulted a passenger and made off with a cell phone at Dublin; and
June 30: A woman on a train with about a dozen teenagers had her phone snatched by one them before the group got off at the Coliseum stop. Thankfully, a good Samaritan was on hand to retrieve the phone.
Debora Allen, who sits on the BART Board of Directors, acknowledged that “people are genuinely concerned” due to these crimes. She is furious that officials around her have decided to put the safety of passengers behind politically correct behavior:
“To release these videos would create a high level of racially insensitive commentary toward the district,” she was told. “And in addition it would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains.”
According to a memo distributed to BART Directors, the agency won’t do a press release on the June 30 theft because it was a “petty crime” that would make BART look “crime ridden.” Furthermore, it would “unfairly affect and characterize riders of color, leading to sweeping generalizations in media reports.”
The memo was from BART Assistant General Manager Kerry Hamill.
Allen emailed Hamill, “I don’t understand what role the color of one’s skin plays in this issue [of whether to divulge information]. Can you explain?” Hamill responded, “If we were to regularly feed the news media video of crimes on our system that involve minority suspects, particularly when they are minors, we would certainly face questions as to why we were sensationalizing relatively minor crimes and perpetuating false stereotypes in the process.” And added her opinion of the media: “My view is that the media’s real interest in the videos of youth phone snatching incidents isn’t the desire for transparency but rather the pursuit of ratings. They know that video of these events will drive clicks to their websites and viewers to their programs because people are motivated by fear.”
Petty crime? Since when are robbery and assault a petty crime? I’m pretty sure the victims would not call these crimes petty.
Allen told CBS SF Bay Area that “scared passengers aren’t being unreasonable – being on a Bart train is a vulnerable position.” She also stated that those who use BART have every right to see what can happen to them:
She says all this raises questions, “What is the priority of BART? Is the safety of the passenger — of all passengers — is that a lesser priority than the race bias issue?”
Kira Davis at RedState summed it up perfectly:
Not the actual criminals. They’re not the ones creating a “racial bias” by beating and robbing people. No. It’s you dirty racists who would like to be informed of crime risks on the transportation you pay for dearly in one of the most expensive cities in the nations.
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Comments
PC, like all forms of delusional thinking, will kill you.
We should not need to disclose the race of the criminals.
We should just refer to them as Obama voters or Trump voters. That will tell you enough. “A gang of Obama voters attacked people on BART.”
However, knowing our biased media, Trump’s alleged support among black criminals will go through the roof – since every criminal will then be described as a Trump supporter on CNN et al….
“perpetuating false stereotypes”
Psst… BART… If you repeatedly capture it on video… it’s not false.
It’s kind of comical, really. “We can’t let you see that the criminals are black because they’re black. It would fulfill the stereotype about blacks being criminals.”
And they wonder why minority’s compromise the largest percentage of prisons
I’m only wondering why you think minorities is spelled “minority’s”.
If 99% of the criminals assaulting, robbing and raping on BART are black youth then it’s perfectly rational to be concerned about black criminals. Only the Progressive Fascists think that the stupid little people shouldn’t worry their little heads about them.
The BART administrators are so clueless about what is going to happen next – once it becomes widely known that those in charge of any system are actively working to cover up what is happening inside that system, trust in that system drops to zero and people begin to do anything they can do to stay away from it.
Also, from now on, whenever a crime is committed on a BART platform or train, it will be automatically assumed by everyone that the perps were black.
BART does not want to publicize the fact that red-headed Irishmen are committing these crimes, because that might cause the public to react against red-headed Irishmen. It makes perfect sense.
Of course, because BART refuses to release the videos, we racists might just ASSUME that the criminals are black youths. That is so unfair of us.
And what does this cover-up to “prevent racism” imply other than that the majority of crimes are being committed by minorities? If the criminals were primarily white adult men the libs would be having that info looping on the BART screens 24/7.
For those not familiar with the geography: BART provides train service that generally funnels people from the suburbs of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties into the “belly of the beast”, Oakland and SF. There is a link to the SF and Oakland airports. The Coliseum station of BART is adjacent to the Oakland coliseum (home of A’s, Raiders (for now) and Warriors) which is located in a tough area, racially unmixed. Any description of a perpetrator of crime that includes race will get the “racist” title affixed.
Re the June 20th event where the “good Samaritan” recovered the stolen iPhone (and got a fairly decent beating in doing so), the story in the press noted that to-date there was a 45% increase in such events over “this time last year”. The April event was the first reported in the press. It looks like the BART people were hiding a problem for quite some time.
Very similar to the news reports where the only description of the perp is wearing a red shirt. You know the facts by what the media refuses to tell you.
Is there any case law for Freedom of Information Act suits for public surveillance video?
BART is a public government agency, FOIA isn’t needed. BART exist at the pleasure of taxpayers which finance it through bonds levied against their property. Every property owner in the counties which BART serves has a financial disclosure right to know the current market value of the bond assessed against their property. Market value, not face value, varies with the perception of BART being on ongoing entity and the risks it faces to future operations.
People have been writing into Letters to the Editor of our newspapers saying after years of riding BART they are now willing to endure longer commute times and crawl along in hyper-congested traffic just to avoid the cesspool BART has become. The stench of feces and urine permeates through the cars from all the homeless that sneak on and use them as open toilets.
BART police claim they have been instructed not remove any homeless unless they are presenting a hazard to safety or an immediate danger to any passenger. They don’t consider urine soaked seats, feces on the floor or lice crawling over sleeping homeless taking up multiple seats a hazard. But if you bring a coffee and donut on BART, BART police can immediately evict you from the train.
People try to take coffee and a doughnut on a train stinking of feces and urine? I don’t think so – it would put off my appetite. You must have a stronger stomach than most….
Their mama’s were interviewed by a TV news crew and said their babies d’ndu nuth’n. Theyz wer jus’ takin’ their girlfriends to high tea at the Garden Court in the Palace Hotel.
Since only leftists will die as a result of this, what do I care?
BARF can’t want the perps caught.
Sanctuary for perps and victemhood for everyone else.
Now Kops should not be given info on perps
After all,
we can’t have the Razist Kops bothering purple-polka dot trsnzgenderz, can we?
Do we need to go back to the times of the ’60s and bus in enough criminals from other places to ensure that the BART can achieve equal representation of minorities that matches that of the US population demographics? They may have fly in Hawaiians, Cubans and Inuit occasionally to meet this ‘equal representation’ of criminals on the BART.
Then they can start releasing videos of crimes on the BART to reinforce the inclusiveness of all minorities.
Mental note when visiting the area, avoid BART at all costs and get an Uber.
I ride BART from SFO to San Francisco relatively often and have not observed any problems, even at off hours. Of course, the racial mix on that side of the bay is quite different than in the East Bay so the risk of wilding packs is lower.
You take your life into your own hands when you ride Uber, as far as that goes – they’ve had their fair share of horror stories.
Really so BART thinks by not providing descriptions people will not know who is doing these crimes …. Seriously. .. The running joke in my local area about our local papers is if they dont provide the race of the criminal odds are he or she was black or perhaps hispanic… I once saw a description given of a man who robbed a Turkey Hill ( local version of 7-11 ) as a man wearing pants … Yes that was it a man wearing pants and they claimed that was the only description given by police… Then you looked at police facebook page and a complete description was given along with the store video of the black guy robbing the place …. And they wonder why we dont trust them when they cant even honestly report crime
[class] diversity.
“we would certainly face questions as to why we were sensationalizing relatively minor crimes and perpetuating false stereotypes in the process.”
___________________
I bet the riders being swarmed by multiple suspects who beat and rob them don’t think of these crimes as “minor.”
And honey, when it’s true, it’s not a “false stereotype.” And the truth, as demonstrated by your own videos as well as reams of crime statistics going back decades, is that black males make up a highly disproportionate percentage of the violent criminals in the U.S.
BART officials and upper Adams should be forced to ride the subways several nights a week during the peak “petty crime period” to experience this.
When Obamacare was rolled out, the senators and congressmen were exempt, i believe. They should be forced to live with what they by their votes thrust upon the common folk.
As long as they are exempt, they don’t feel our “pain” (as Slick Willy so often stated.
Adams should be Admins
“The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) authority has decided not to release surveillance videos of robberies occurring at BART stations for fear they videos might incite racism.”
Memo for BART: The quickest way to “incite racism” is to ignore/suppress the obvious.
San Franciscans (at least most of them) aren’t idiots: they know perfectly well who’s conducting these robberies as well as their racial/ethnic affinities. And I reckon they don’t like it one bit.
Ya gotta’ give the BART administrators a break Mark, cause…you know…..they don’t ride the BART…(That’s for the regular people)
“Since when are robbery and assault a petty crime? ”
I suspect the answer is “when whites are the victims.”
A friend of mine rides Bart into Oakland every day. She says BART only very recently changed out their old broken decoy surveillance cams for new functional ones. Then what do you know, after a week or two they are in the news for suppressing the video.
Pretty clear these black teen mob crimes gave been going on forever and BART was suporessing the information by not surveilling it. Friend says BART was forced to put working cameras in after someone died but they didn’t want to. It was like pulling teeth. Now we know why.
Aren’t these liberals just telling us about themselves?
a) They see race rather than behavior — a fundamental requirement for racist behavior.
b) The run from facts and truth — core attributes for a liberal.
Firefighters know that the best way to have a building stop burning is to ignore the fire — right? How can willful blindness and mendacity solve any problem? It is almost as though these liberals are deliberately feeding racism by effectively encouraging these black youth to commit crimes with no accountability. Is it deliberate or are these people really that stupid? I know they are racists and dishonest for starters.
Is the once great California over the tipping point?
Perhaps one day they will run into someone prepared to defend himself, if you know what I mean.
Paging Mr. Bernhard Goetz, paging Mr. Bernhard Goetz.
Paul. You want to page the other guy. About 2 months after the Goetz incident there was another armed robbery incident on the NYC subway. The victim “took care of business” and got off at the next stop. Not one of the other passengers saw or heard anything out of the ordinary. The victim did not respond to the NYPD’s pleas to “assist them in their inquiries”. End of story.
Let’s guess. Porch Monkeys running amuck again?
A fun exercise. Imagine if one of the victims, say a woman, who was being threatened and beaten and then robbed had pulled out a pistol and shot one of the offenders. Whom do you think would be the one getting their picture shown on TV? Also, is there one of you, after you read that 60 “Teens” boarded a BART train and robbed, beat and threatened many riders, who did not know they were black? Isn’t it a human response to learn from seeing and hearing about potential threats that may come up in your life and then act on that learned knowledge? Isn’t that what Jessie Jackson said about meeting a gang of black teens on the street? But if the leftists keep the info from us then we do not learn nor protect ourselves in the future. Imagine the poor BART riders who are sitting there and see a large gang of black teens approaching the train door!
“Imagine if one of the victims, say a woman, who was being threatened and beaten and then robbed had pulled out a pistol and shot one of the offenders”
Difficult to imagine since none of the Bay Area counties issue concealed carry licenses. There is no cause good enough to satisfy their “good cause” requirement.