be safe with your iPods

I witnessed a theft yesterday. I am still in shock that something of that nature actually happened in my presence.

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I was on my way home from the job fair and was siting on the J-Church MUNI train. I got on at Powell Street station, found a seat and sat down. It was crowded, but not extremely crowded. There were three teenagers standing in front of me next to the doors. Two girls and a guy, roughly around 15-17 years of age. The girls were dressed in hoochie clothes that teenage girls should not be wearing these days, and one of the girls was hanging onto the guy in an inappropriate manner. Teenagers, right?

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As the train pulled into the next station, Civic Center, which is one stop from Powell street, the three teenagers shout out "We're getting off! We're getting off! We're getting off!" The doors open, the girls run out and the guy turns around behind him and grabs this man's iPod out of the man's hands and bolts out the door. The man, with earphones still attached to his ears, jumps up, screams "Stop that kid, he stole my iPod!" and chases after the three teenagers.

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All this happened in two seconds. I saw the kids run up the stairs and the man whose iPod the teenage boy took run after them. I'm pretty sure those three teenagers did not get far because the station was crowded with people and everyone heard the shout "He stole my iPod!" as the man ran after them. Plus, MUNI bulked up security at the downtown stations, so hopefully a police officer stopped them from hopping over the turnstiles.

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The other passengers and I were in shock. All I could say was "Wow." I always heard or read stories about these kind of things happening in OTHER cities, but never did I imagine it would happen so close to home, literally.

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Sadly, the three kids did not help the stereotype that comes with being "black" (which they were), because as soon as the next baggy-pants-wearing African American guy got on the train, everyone moved away from him and stuck their phones/iPods/blackberries/wallets deeper into his/her pockets.