Why you shouldn't text on your iPhone in public
By adamg - 11/17/09 - 9:25 am
MBTA Transit Police tweet the entire Boston area is "experiencing a rash of iPhone robberies," in particular, from people who are texting:
If you're texting, your focus is on phone, on surroundings. Thieves are watching for this and will grab phone while you're preoccupied.
Last night, one Orange Line rider reported a T cop told her not to use her cell phone on the Orange Line because of an outbreak of cell-phone robberies on that line.
Comments
You'd think someone would
You'd think someone would realize it's a good time to use some undercover ops to crack down on the 'used' cell phone stores in the city.
if they can spend so much time telling us all to be careful...
...why can't they spend some time catching the thieves?
Since apparently this is so difficult, I offer a suggestion. Place "victims" in trains with undercover officers. Have them spend the whole damn train ride texting, until someone steals their phone. Arrest them.
ROCKET SCIENCE!
Its been done anon, the problem is....
Probably only 1/5000 people that use their phones on the trains end up getting them stolen. So your chances aren't that great to catch these guys doing it that way, but it does happen.
So its not exactly rocket science.
not to mention...
... what a horrible use of police resources that would be. let's have them sit on their asses on a train car, hoping somebody commits a specific crime in front of them, so they can nab 'em.
OR, phone owners could just be aware of the danger and take proper precautions to not be an easy mark.
OR, people could just be
OR, people could just be nice and not steal other people's phones.
Unfortunately the world doesn't work that way. Having officers on platforms where most of these thefts take place would be the best course of action. The suspect still has to get out of the station after stealing a phone, and its hard to do with a police officer in the way.
Not to mention that the mere presence
of one or more UNIFORMED officers is usually enough to deter impulse crimes of opportunity like snatching a phone or iPod out of a person's hand.
Plus, having officers actually present in the stations will reduce response time to a whole variety of possible emergencies.
Ive never, ever, ever seen a
Ive never, ever, ever seen a uniformed officer riding a train or bus. Ive seen MBTA employees on their way home, but never transit police.
Im pretty sure the undercover ones ride the trains..
and the uniformed ones patrol the stations.
And Im not 100% sure, but the T police usually have specific assisnments for uniformed stations that have the most need. They are staffed according to that need.
then why do we never hear of undercover officers catching anyone
"Im pretty sure the undercover ones ride the trains.."
Right, so where are the arrests, then? Either they're incompetent or they're not actually on the trains, the MBTA police just tell us they are so we behave like good girls and boys.
Plus, apparently groping is this HUGE freakin' problem and they devote all sorts of resources to it, except I don't know a single person who has ever been groped on a train...but I know friends who have been punched, mugged, etc on the T.
Also, I was once told by a station attendant that "fare evasion wasn't worth [her] gettin' beat up", when I pointed out a group of teenage girls who had bypassed the fare gates.
Well I dont know for sure either way but...
are you the anon who said it was "rocket science" to put them on trains anyway? If you put a random cop on a random train, how often do you think they would catch someone? Whats the crime rate per train on the MBTA? Its going to be very rare to go around and find random crimes.
And they usually go on trains when they have specific tips that certain activities are going on. Groping is one of those activities and they do make arrests on those. They are linked on this site all the time.
T riders need to take some
T riders need to take some group responsibility too - if people are around, and someone steals a phone, then instead of just saying, "Eh, not my problem" bystanders should do something about it - i.e., trip/tackle the perp, teach them a lesson. IIRC an MBTA customer service rep did that on the Red Line a few months ago, and damn it all, that's how it should be.
And before everyone says people are just afraid of being sued -
no, that's just an excuse not to do anything. There's no way in hell I wouldn't do something to thwart a criminal because I would be worried about a lawsuit. Think about it - if you were sued because of actions to stop/intervene in the commission of a crime, the odds are any judge would just laugh. Yes, even in Massachusetts.
The T's community property - it's time to stop bitching about it and take part in keeping it safe and clean.
Bearing Witness
I've been in situations where some jerk is pulling shit (abusing and slapping someone) and I have seen people move away or hide behind papers, etc.
Without confronting, I have made it abundantly clear that I am watching and observing. When one asshat tried to bully and threaten me, I didn't waver and I didn't back down or cower. I just calmly noted that while he was threatening me, I was memorizing every detail about his hair, eye color, stature, clothing and commiting it to memory for the sake of identifying him to the police. He screamed at me, but backed away and bailed at the next stop, I calmly told the cops who they were looking for.
I think that many of these jerks are afraid of people who are not afraid of them - particularly women. This particular one claimed that I had a concealed gun in my purse. He must have imagined that I had to have been packing since I showed him no fear. Of course I did not.
Wonder how many phones will
Wonder how many phones will be stolen while the user reads the tweet about it?
Already we can see this advice is a major psychic blow to iPhone users, who already tend toward extreme self-centeredness. You mean they now actually have to pay attention to the world around them? The horror...the horror.... They'll think they paid a couple hundred bucks for the right not to do that.
while there may be a "rash of iPhone robberies"
i ride the orange line twice a day - sometimes at 11 or 12 at night. I usually have my iphone out checking messages and whatnot. I've never had my phone stolen (knock on wood), and ive never seen anyone get their phone stolen (knock on wood).
I believe it happens, I just haven't seen it for myself so I wonder how many iphones are being stolen a day/week/month?