The Politically Incorrect Truth About Oakland's Great Train Robbery (BART)

On Saturday 60 or 70 local kids jumped the turnstiles and committed 60 or 70 robberies of a San Francisco bound BART train, as it sat in the last West Oakland BART Station on it's way to the Transbay Tube. The kids (boys mostly), were filmed as they robbed frightened passengers at knife point.

It's a spectacular crime, the kind that happens in some countries a lot, and in the US, not so much. The Bay Area Rapid Transit people have many ways to contact the public, muses the San Francisco Chronicle. So why is no one talking about it? Indeed, why did BART not go public with the crime sooner than Monday, 48 hours after it happened?

http://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/BART-s-decision-not-to-publicize-takeover-11098643.php

The SF Chronicle knows damn well why not. It's because the perpetrator were all African American kids from local high schools. BART doesn't need the public help, because the entire event was filmed from security cameras all over the station. All they have to do to identify the kids is go to local Oakland high school with photos and ask their teachers. There, I said it. Come arrest me.

The passengers were every race, but included many residents and tourists from Europe and Asia. When they finally release the security camera footage, you'll see what I mean.

Oakland, which up until ten years ago was the largest majority African American city West of the Mississippi, is still 34% black (I use Black and African American interchangeably in this article; you may also write to flame me for that if you want). But Oakland is gentrifying rapidly as property values throughout the Bay Area skyrocket.

Personally, I don't blame these "inner city youth" for being angry. The black kids have mostly been left behind on the rush of money into the East Bay. They know it and they don't like it. That African Americans have largely been left out of the 21st Century Tech Boom in America is just another inconvenient truth. Perhaps if the Oakland School District taught them Science, Technology and Math in school instead of the latest liberal jargon, they would be competitive for jobs.

(Footnote: These "youth from the community" must have used social media to coordinate the crime--Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, most probably. So they are not entirely without tech skills. Just saying).

They also know that White guilt probably means there will be no consequences for them. They are taught in school by the uber-liberal mostly white teachers, that White privilege is the reason the Caucasians and Asians get most of the six figure tech jobs. They are taught that America owes black people reparations for slavery, which ended 152 years ago. Why shouldn't they jump a few turnstiles?

"Tony Ribera, a former San Francisco police chief who directs the International Institute of Criminal Justice Leadership at the University of San Francisco, said he didn't understand why BART didn't publicize the crime sooner - both to enhance public safety and to enlist help in finding the offenders," marvels the Chronicle.

Finally, there is the ridership thing. BART wants people to take the train, of course. This sort of event, if it becomes common and publicized, is a reason to drive into work and leave the train behind.

I close with a long excerpt from the SF Chronicle article. Read between the lines.

Tony Ribera, a former San Francisco police chief who directs the International Institute of Criminal Justice Leadership at the University of San Francisco, said he didn’t understand why BART didn’t publicize the crime sooner — both to enhance public safety and to enlist help in finding the offenders.

“It seems to me rather strange ... but maybe they had other reasons,” Ribera said. “Usually, the quicker you get information out, the more likely you’re going to solve the case. The longer you wait, the less likely that is to happen.”

Ribera said making the crime public can be critical for locating witnesses and identifying those involved. And releasing surveillance photos and videos, he said, is often key to the effort.

BART faces a separate set of issues related to surveillance images of the suspects. Officials declined Tuesday to release images from cameras at Coliseum Station, citing a policy of protecting the identity of juveniles, but did send them confidentially to outside police agencies in a bulletin known as a BOLO, which stands for “be on the lookout.”

“The video clearly shows that these were young kids and young teens,” said Trost, whose agency has boosted the number of officers patrolling Oakland stations in response to Saturday’s robbery and an overall rise in police calls.

David Snyder, an attorney and the executive director at the First Amendment Coalition in San Rafael, said such a policy made sense because California law offers special protections for minors accused of a crime. However, Snyder said that doesn’t mean the agency can’t release images or video with the identifying features of juveniles redacted — for instance, with their faces blurred — which BART officials have done in the past.