How to be a Little Bit Safer When Riding the Subway in Rhamaland

Crime continues to climb in Rahamaland, the city of the big shoulders, Chicago.

The Chicago Tribune posts these stats for crime on public transportation:

CRIMES ON CTA BUSES OR AT BUS STOPS

2009-2011 total

5,457

+42.8% from 2009 to 2011

Type	2009-11	Change from 2009 to 2011
Robbery	706	126.6%
Theft	1,844	66.9%
Battery	1,373	15.1%

CRIMES ON CTA TRAINS OR ON PLATFORMS

2009-2011 total

10,759

+6.2% from 2009 to 2011

Type	2009-11	Change from 2009 to 2011
Robbery	1340	42.6%
Theft	3,209	30.1%
Battery	1,006	8.8%

Shootings are a daily occurrence in Rhamaland. Fifteen people were shot across the city Saturday night into Sunday morning, including a 13-year-old boy and two 14-year-old boys, according to the Tribune.

Two other boys, 14 and 15, were shot and wounded while playing basketball on the South Side and a man was shot after a funeral party, also on the South Side, police said.

In Rhamaland, LBJ's great grandkids rule once the sun goes down.

It's still mostly gang activity, but it is coming to the core of the city, where Rahm voters reside.


Shortly after midnight Thursday, a 31-year-old  with gang ties was shot downtown near Michigan Avenue and Ontario Street. That's the heart of the shopping district and where Rahmites tend to live.


Lincoln Park, also Rhamite country,  saw LBJ's grand kids strike there. The Tribune reports:

Not far from Lincoln Park's North Pond, where neighbors paused to watch a brood of ducklings Saturday afternoon, one man was shot and two other people were run down by a vehicle hours earlier in a suspected gang-related attack. 

"This is Lincoln Park," said Ann Nordsell, 45, who stopped on her way home Saturday to watch the ducks waddle in the shallow water near Lincoln Park Zoo. She was astonished to learn that gang violence had spilled over into her lakefront neighborhood. "I don't believe it."
Police said the three victims — two men and one woman — had been hanging out at about 4 a.m. near a bike path at 2400 Cannon Drive, just south of Fullerton Parkway and north of the zoo, when multiple vehicles approached. One veered over a curb, striking a 25-year-old man before turning around and running down the woman, 21.

 Police said someone began shooting from inside one of the vehicles as they drove away, wounding the second man, 26.

All three were taken to area hospitals, and police had portions of the park cordoned off with yellow tape for hours.

How bad are things? Reporters are closing their stories with advice on how to stay safe.  One Tribune report closed this way:

“The Red Line late at night is dangerous as hell,” said Mike Bjordal, 52, the night dining-room manager at the Leona's restaurant in Hyde Park who rides the train to his home in Edgewater about 3 a.m. 

Bjordal said he has witnessed attacks on the CTA. He quickly learned that sounds he first thought were bottles breaking were actually gunshots...  

"I am being pummeled by family and friends who ask why the hell do I ride public transit after midnight," said Bjordal, an Iowa native who replaced a Leona's manager who was murdered in the restaurant in 2006. "My rules are always ride in the first car so if you have to scream loud, the train operator will hear you; glance at people, but never make eye contact; take the individual seat on the car so no one sits next to you; and mind your own business."

The Tribune also reported what happens when you don't follow these rules:

"I never get on the last car of a train [anymore], especially if it's late at night and there's no one else riding," said Jeremy Kniola, a 35-year-old Wicker Park neighborhood resident who was robbed at gunpoint on a first date a few years ago.

Kniola had taken a woman to a show downtown and, after a nightcap, they boarded a Blue Line train at the Clark/Lake station about 1 a.m. They got on the last car, and just as the doors were closing, two men followed.

"One of them stuck a gun right under her chin, and the other one put a gun in my ribs and said, 'Look, it's real, and I'll use it,'" Kniola recalled. "The car was empty. We were easy pickings."

The thieves made off with his date's purse, his wallet and cash, Kniola said.

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That wasn't the case for Kody Zaagman, 22, a pre-med student at Loyola University who was robbed on a Green Line train this year while riding back to his Oak Park home.

After spending hours at the school's downtown library studying for midterm exams, Zaagman boarded a train at the State/Lake station about 9 p.m. March 19 and took an aisle-facing seat near the door. As the train rumbled west, three men who had sat next to him for a few stops suddenly confronted him.

"One points a gun right at me and says: 'Better give me the stuff, or I'll pull the trigger.'" Zaagman recalled. He handed over his bag that contained his wallet, laptop, iPhone, credit cards and class notes. Then the man with the gun pistol-whipped Zaagman across the back of his head, opening up a nasty gash, and they fled at the Cicero station.

Zaagman said that after the men ran, some passengers from the nearly full train car helped him to a seat and called 911. Others seemed indifferent.

"Some of them were laughing and calling friends, saying, 'Guess what just happened?'" Zaagman said.