Dudley Do”BART”Right

Here are a few interesting incidents I had this past week while riding the rails to work. On Saturday I walked off the train at 12th Street and took the platform escalator to the ticketing level. Unfortunately two, black teenagers decided not to let anyone by, so it was a slow ride. But much more rewarding when we got to the top. The one teen, sporting a red cap with dollar signs over it, starting looking around as if his head were on a swivel. Then you could see it coming before his head turned back. Was was trying to fare evade.

He hopped the iron gating right in front of me. Now, if I didn’t have a BART radio in my hand and my badge out, because I was heading for the fare gate, the results could have been different. Instead, I spoke (loudly), “Hey, what do you think you are doing, fare evading?” The guy looks around, as if I was talking to someone else, he glances at my radio and badge and hopped back over the gate. His partner at this point turns and starts to walk away. His response was, “I was going to add fare to my ticket.” I said, “you do that inside the paid area, not outside of it.”

I continued to walk behind them and got the station agent’s booth and pointed the two individuals out to her and the fact they were trying to fare evade. Not sure if they had a ticket or not, I left it in her hands and walked through the fare gates. Of course, as I was walking downtown Oakland, I did keep turning around to make sure I was not being followed. Call it paranoia.

Today, I rode in to Lake Merritt, foregoing walking in from 12th Street because I was running late. A white trash looking female with tight blue jeans that went to her knees, wearing a tight, low cut tank top with a tattoo across her chest reading, “Snoop’s Woman” boarded with a black male wearing some type of white sweat suit outfit over a black shirt. After about 60 seconds the male unveiled a 40 ouncer wrapped in a brown paper bag. As he started unscrewing the cap to the bottle, my radio went off. It was loud enough he heard it and looked at me and quickly recapped the bottle and put it out of sight as if nothing had happened.

I have no idea what happened after I off boarded at Lake Merritt, but it was interesting to watch his reaction from behind my tint Oakley glasses. The same goes for the two fare evaders. All because of a radio…