Nope, nothing to do with race. She was a victim, then observed a crime on the metro, coincidentally. Unfortunately for her, things happen in 3's so something else shitty will happen to her. Bummer.

But seriously - the witnesses to these crimes who were on the train as well are presumably and would statistically be a majority of African Americans. Black people get on and off of trains all the time, esp. Van Ness-UDC after classes get out. I didn't see any profiling. Just facts.

"One one hand it strikes me as race baiting. For some reason the anonymous writer sees the need to point out that black teenagers are stealing iPods and black men are groping women. Of course people make these things up: remember Susan Smith?"

Yes, because God forbid someone should a) attempt to paint a vivid mental picture or b) in the case of the former, encourage people to be wary of groups of teenagers who don't appear to threaten anything besides a Metro ride in peace and quiet. I don't know which is worse, the hypersensitive reaction to the fact that the victim happened to note the race of the perpetrators or the fact that you have the audacity to insinuate the story was fabricated (yet don't have the balls to come out and say so).

the anonymous woman did not paint a vivid mental picture. To say "black teenage girls, one of whom was wearing a military jacket" is not a vivid picture. It is indeed USELESS: what is a "military jacket"? There are scores of black teenage girls who ride Metro every day, most of whom are not stealing iPods.

I don't know if the story was fabricated or not, so the size or quantity of my balls is not relevant here either. I am saying that under the circumstances I am leery of this uncorroborated story from someone for whom giving the race of perpetrators paints a "vivid" picture.

There are any number of publicity-wanting, axe-grinding people who might make a story like this up. I'm not saying it is made up. I am saying that I have seen no corroboration of this story and until I do I'm not going to assume it happened. Even if it did happen, I sure as hell am not going to be suspicious of "groups of teenagers" who ride Metro because most of them are riding for the same reason I am: they want transportation!!!

Good for you, massysett; after all, they say a conservative is a liberal who's just been mugged.

Please. As someone who knows the mugging victim very well, it's rather insulting to read that she is being accuse of racism for pointing out that that the teenages her mugged her were black.

Have some compassion for a woman who was mugged at 4pm coming home from work and where no one came to her aid.

massysett, ask yourself: Who is the true racist here? I think you know the answer.

I think Massysett is on to something - the assailants' skin color really has nothing to do with poster's central issue - metro employees and metro riders not responding to incidents of lawlessness. It cost the author nothing, literally or figuratively, to remove that element from her post.

Not that I would be surprised if the incident actually happened. The red line at that hour is notorious for poorly behaved schoolkids. Typically their antics are obnoxious, but benign. Cleary there are some out-of-control kids in the area: example.

The behavior of teenagers regardless of skin color, socio-economic background, or choice of conveyance seems to be problem that plagues every generation. While visiting my parents in an affluent suburban Atlanta neighborhood several years ago, I randomly was pushed off a bicycle by four white kids who jumped out of a pretty new Audi. Not to mention the several times that white, drunk twenty-something meatheads have made me feel uncomfortable on the last orange line train heading into Virginia.

Whatever. Empirically Metro’s still a safe way to travel, but a little reminder here and there that they need to keep up the vigilance isn’t bad

Unfortunately there's a wide gulf between robbery and you being made to feel uncomfortable, tk.

The assailants' race is most certainly relevant. It's an identifying characteristic that's relevant to locating them (however unlikely that may be). You could just as easily say it's sexist to note they were female, or age-ist to note they were teenagers. Why are people so terrified to even mention someone's race?

There's your precious confirmation that the incident actually happened:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/21/AR2005112101927.html

I read her entire post/description before I even found your site, and I found no evidence of race-baiting whatsoever. So unless she completely rewrote the whole thing (rather than just taking out the references that they were black), you were way off-base when you accused her of race-baiting.

Your reaction was not only ugly, it was very stupid. On the one hand, you argue that it is irrational to be afraid of groups of teenagers because only a small percentage of them actually mug people. But then you insinuate that the victim is like Susan Smith, even though there is only one Susan Smith, in comparison to thousands of legitimate crime victims every year! Why do the teenagers get the benefit of the doubt, but the victim does not? I personally would give both groups the benefit of the doubt. At the very least, you are applying a double-standard.

If you don't have anything useful to say, then don't say anything at all. Or perhaps you should go join the ranks of Metro train operators...it sounds like you have the same dedication to customer service that they do. Actually, you might not even meet Metro standards - I'm sure the victim would have preferred the train operators that ignored her pleas over one that yelled at her for identifying the race of the muggers and then told her that she must be a liar.