SEPTA ruins safe travel
I was taunted by a mob of black teenagers and hit on the back of my head while waiting for a bus at the Norristown Transportation Center; the security employees were nowhere to be found.
A bus driver, who said “[he] [is] no bus”, eventually got the two uniformed security officers to come out from the back room. They asked us (myself and the witness) to identify the assaulter, but from a far distance and where the teenagers were not even facing us - as though to sabotage the details of the recount and diminish the significance of the incident. Then, we all watched the teenagers just walking away.
Within a week, my likeness was shared throughout transit personnel of other stations, making me a further target.
When bus drivers dissociate from incidents, security skews records, and the surveillance footage gets previewed only on a formal complaint, then it conceals crime and hinders the Attorney General’s pursuing it. A search of SEPTA’s website shows no published reports disclosing rates or types of crime taking place on its grounds – no transparency!
When presence of the center’s security is assumed, the Police (who routinely monitor streets and parking lots) do not patrol there. Having disappeared into the safety of the back rooms, Transit Security personnel enabled open season on its customers.
Reported, witnessed, or surveillance-recorded assault crimes (as with above incident) should be pursued by authorities regardless of victims’ participation (all SEPTA customers are similarly vulnerable), based on the fact of the crime and to the extent of the information available - to curb propagation of violence.








