It’s been ten years since Feb 2015 when I published this essay on my sunny side blog, Leebythesea. I thought I’d republish it here as well since it is more appropriate for the nether side of life:

“He was only humping me.” A female subway rider.

As you descend into the subway you feel the air rushing up as it’s pushed ahead of a speeding train. It’s almost like the exhale of living being.  

As you descend further into the tile caverns, you hear its growl, steel wheels on steel tracks, and maybe a voice-over warning, “Thirty-fourth Street next, watch the closing doors.” But you need to watch out for more than the closing doors.

Every day, you and five million others descend to form huge crowds who travel together. You think you know all about those crowds beneath the street’s surface. But the bustling masses below are just another surface. Beneath that surface…is the world of predators and police.

If you’re on a New York City subway platform at rush hour, you see masses of faces hurrying here, standing there, reading, texting, listening to music or podcasts. Most are facing the direction from which the train will arrive. But if you stay a while on a platform, you’ll see the faces change as people get on trains or use the stairways. But you’ll also see that some people do not leave even after trains come and go. And you might wonder why they seem less interested in the train coming than they are in the people around them. They often are there for a purpose other than transport, and they are of two kinds: the people who would hunt you and the people who hunt them…the plainclothes Transit cops.

In the ’80s, I worked the rush hour in Anti-Crime, or A/C, as we called it. A lot has changed in the subways since then, but some things never change. My partner and I would get accustomed to seeing the repeat faces back then. We’d know the “game” on many of them: perv or pickpocket. The pervs, or perverts, would be much more apparent than the pickpockets. 

The former would be oblivious to their surroundings and act as if they had a license for free range over the passing women who boarded trains coming and going every minute or so. The picks would be more careful, as would the bag openers, a subset of larcenists, trying to blend in as they searched for prey.

The bag openers would specialize in looking for good bag “presentation,” especially an unprotected pocketbook hanging to the rear. But no matter their care, all of these predators would be spotted by the trained eye of a good Transit cop.

An overview of the species, pervus transitorus:

The pervs worked the busy home-bound or work-bound train traffic platform and looked at the train’s cars as the doors opened and closed. If the car was relatively empty, they’d wait for the next train and repeat the process. If they saw a women squeezed into a crowded car with just scant room behind her…that was an opportunity, they’d jump aboard.

It was easy to spot the pervs. Some would be pretty furtive, but others would whisk along the platform, checking the doors repeatedly. When they’d get behind a woman on the train, they’d press against her or fondle her on the ride between stations.

My partner and I would also board the train as close to the subject as possible, but sometimes, we had to settle for some distance. When we saw the woman’s apparent distress, we approached her as quickly and quietly as possible and identified ourselves as police.

I’d talk to her as my partner would watch the perv exit; he’d be keeping an eye on the perv but watching me, too, for a signal. But the woman would often just want to go about her business, go home, or go to work and not want to press charges. If this happened, I’d signal my partner by shaking my head; the perv never even knew we were onto him. We’d have another shot at him, maybe within the hour.

Often, a perv would engage in “looping,” riding the train behind a woman for an express-stop length of time, maybe five minutes, then get off and ride or “loop” back on a lightly boarded train to the station he just left and start all over again. It was as if he were at some bizarre, fantasy attraction of his own; I’d call it Mr Turd’s Wild Ride.

One perv told me the ladies liked what he did and would even back up against him in reciprocation. I told him if he continued to act on that assumption, he could count on receiving his mail for many years at the crossbar hotel.

But one time, when my partner asked a woman if she’d sign a complaint, she said, “No, he was only humping me.” She seemed fine with the situation. But she only encouraged the guy to continue his “sport” repeatedly. All we could do was play the guy the next time we spotted him and hope for a better response. But this woman might change her attitude when some perv leaves his ejaculate and his DNA on her slacks as evidence of his presence.

I saw a woman so victimized when no officer was there to apprehend him. She was furious. If a cop had arrested that perv I think she’d not only be very willing to prosecute, she’d have recommended a firing squad and she’d provide the coup de grace. 

Once, I approached a woman while the perv was still waiting to exit the train door. She was a middle-aged woman; he was perhaps a late teen. An oedipal thing? I don’t know, but she was about three times his age and held onto a pole in the center aisle. When she told me she was on her way home from a chemo treatment and didn’t want to pursue anything, I told her, “You don’t need him doing that to you, and you don’t need me bothering you either.” I wonder if he interpreted her groans as approval. I walked over to talk to him, but the train lurched, and I accidentally stepped on his new white sneakers. He said, “Only a cop would do that.” We chatted a bit, and he left. I never saw him again.

The highest general crime tour was in the afternoon and evening, so we’d work the evening rush when we weren’t on stakeout for robberies or other felonies. We’d get to know the regulars at those rushes, and most of the time, they didn’t know us. Even if they did, we’d still often be able to board a train relatively near them without their knowledge.

Sometimes, the pervs we busted were unemployed or laborers, sometimes professionals. One regular perv was a well-dressed dude we called “Scarsdale” for his nice, tan-colored camel-hair overcoat. By naming them, we’d know who was being referred to when “Scarsdale just got off the northbound E” was whispered.

When we were on standby for a court appearance, we’d sometimes play the morning rush before the court. One day, I was working in the morning rush when I spotted Scarsdale. Before that, I had only observed him on the pm rush. But this morning, he was taking the loaded Manhattan-bound train from Roosevelt Ave to Queens Plaza round trip, again and again. He worked both ends of the day’s rush hours. But doing this before his day at work meant he’d have had to get up and leave home early to have time for this “joy” ride. Such dedication. I wonder if he displayed a wry smile when he told his wife what a grind the day had been.

I was checking out a boat at a boat show on Long Island one day. I got off the craft to look at it from the ground, in front of the bow. When I looked up, at the helm was Scarsdale, sans camel hair coat…with his wife right alongside. Small world, and so many small people.

Another regular we’d spot was The Discriminator. We’d spot him stalking the length of the Queen’s Plaza platform, repeatedly checking out the train’s car doors endlessly. Was he looking for a specific type of woman, someone young, someone older, someone in slacks or a dress? We’d watch him, but he’d do this for so long that we became concerned that others seeing us dogging him so long would “make” us. So we just waited for the right opportunity.

One day, we saw him board a train and stand between two teen boys. We got right on the train with him. He had a NY Times in his hand to use as a shield. When we did our question/follow routine, I learned that he had placed his hand on the front of one of the boy’s pants, rubbing his penis. We busted him.

The Discriminator worked for a large and well-known financial service company. He had two homes, one in Connecticut and the other in a nice section of Queens. When we went to court, the complaining witness, a fifteen-year-old boy, was accompanied by an escort who brought him from the group home where he was staying. Before this encounter, he was already a troubled teen.

There was a plea deal for Discriminator to be given probation. But when the Asst. DA told the judge we had observed him stalking in the subway on many occasions. He ordered treatment as a condition of probation. Discriminator’s wife sat in the audience as he admitted his guilt to the judge quietly by the side of the bench. This unusual side-bar admission was done possibly to protect the victim from embarrassment or maybe to protect the the perv from the wrath of the people present, perhaps both.

Public transport often puts us all near one another. The overwhelming majority of us travel without any criminal intent. And people do become crushed against each other, innocently. But if it can be shown that someone took advantage of that situation and there was intent to sexually abuse, there’s gonna be trouble.

There is much less crime today in NYC and its subways since my years on the Transit Police force. But in five years ending in 2013, there were 3000 misdemeanor subway sex crimes reported. However, the number of such unreported crimes would significantly dwarf that figure.

Anyone who pursues this line of activity should know that most jurors in NYC travel to court via subway, and half or more of them could be women. If convicted, he will have a sex crime criminal record and will face perhaps a year in jail; repeat offenders can receive more than a year in prison on a sex charge felony conviction. This might entail living among inmates whose wives and daughters travel to work and school on the subway.

In any case, a sex abuse convict will also have to register as a sex offender. Being on such a list will be embarrassing and carry a stigma that will ruin most apartment rental and job options. It’s not the best hobby to practice these days. Maybe those with such propensities might consider instead some therapy once or twice a week as a pastime. Less exciting, sure, but better than family disgrace, prison degradation, and social ostracism. 

One day my partner and I saw a male on a train behind an Asian woman with his erect penis out and pressed against her buttocks. We busted him. We didn’t need her for the public lewdness charge because we witnessed it, but she was a cooperative complainant, which made a solid case for the sex abuse charge as well. During processing, he asked me if I thought this would hurt his chances of becoming a Transit cop as he was on the list waiting to be appointed. I told him, “Yes…I think it kinda would.”

Be well,

Lee,

shedding a little light wherethesundontshine

See also my sunny side blog: Leebythesea.me