What do you think about the way this played out?

The kid was dishonest, disorderly and he was warned, he got what he deserved, tossed off the train.
Who did the tossing makes no difference, and the father filing a complaint is just the big rotten daddy apple defending his little wormy apple offspring.

Yes, it is a waste of law enforcements time, they should be grateful a decent person took care of the situation and saved them the trouble.

The kid is lucky he just got thrown off the train.

If I was the cop told to look into it, the kid would be sitting in jail right now for theft of services.

I certainly don’t support fare dodgers, but…

This was not the way to handle the situation. Either the fare-dodger or the bouncer could have been hurt by the way the kid was put off the train, and then either would have had a decent liability suit against the train operator. Not wise from a liability standpoint. (Any of the other passengers between the seat and the door could also have been injured.)

If the kid was put off the train with no money and no way to get out of the weather, then in severe weather he could have been at risk of his life, and the train operator liable for untold damages.

The kid should have been pointed out to police at the end of a quiet ride and handled by those professionals doing their jobs – even though it adds an administrative layer of “handling” to what should have been a simple “gotcha” from the conductor and “aw shucks, I’ll get off then” from the dodger.

The father of the kid is filing a formal complaint apparently and the police are looking for “The Big Man”.

I am so shocked they want to take this further, if it was my kid I would tell them you are bloody lucky you didn’t get arrested, not stick up for the kid and complain!

@bongo

I agree. All this worry over liability…I say tough shit kiddo, but, in our “modern” times the village that it takes to raise a child is now at risk of being the village idiot for intervening in an obvious case of wrongdoing.

Obscene to say the least.

The person in the wrong is the father. That is where his antisocial offspring gets his attitude from. Having said that it is probably best to let the police deal with the situation when he gets to his destination.

The father is wrong.

However, the conductor was wrong to assent to involving another passenger. He should have had the police meet the train at the next stop and take the kid off.

The father is WAY wrong. The father is the reason the kid is they way he is.

I literally TOOK a little boy from his druggy mother when he jumped out of her car after she was driving erratically down the highway in front of me on the verge of having a headon collision with oncomng traffic on a two lane highway.
She was screaming for me to give her back her son as she made a U turn into oncoming traffic!

I received a citizens commendation award for that from my local police dept. and nobody tried to sue me.

Upfront, I have bad hearing, so I did not undertand many of the words crossed between the two people.

I will say this, the Conductor was correct in the action he took against the teenager. No ticket no ride and a foul mouth only adds more trouble for the kid.

“Shes got a ticket to ride, shes got a ticket to ride, shes got a ticket to ride, but the Conductor don’t care”......so off the train he goes and rightly so.

U rock @Coloma! But I’ll just bet she tried to. And I’ll bet if she had the money she might have succeeded too.

That kind of makes me ill…how old was the boy?

@john65pennington It had nothing to do with your hearing…it was in very accented Scottish. If it weren’t for the subtitles (which maybe were added after you saw it) I wouldn’t have understood anything they said either.

IS THERE ANY PROGRAM OUT THERE THAT WILL PLAY VIDEOS WITH HAVING THEM START AND STOP??

@Dutchess_III

I think you’re responding to the wrong Q. haha, but, yes, she was a nut, and the boy was about 8, maybe.

@Coloma..What? I was responding to your post, just above John P about taking the kid out of the car.

You know what…this is the kind of shit teachers have to deal with in the classroom all the time. And there are principals out there who won’t allow a teacher to send the child out of the classroom to the office. I’ve had principals say “Deal with the problem in your classroom.” Can you imagine how destructive that is to the education of all the other students, to have one acting like that ALL the time?

@Dutchess_III Oops..I was responding to the wrong question…never mind, brain freeze. That was weird, I thought you wrote this in another thread…Okay…I have Alzheimers. lol

@Dutchess_III

The woman was a druggy, she went home after I took the boy, fell asleep and then, when her teenage daughter came home and couldn’t find the little brother she woke the mom up and they were driving around with the mom trying to remember what happened!

The cops pulled her over with my description of her vehicle. They called me the next day and said the father was very grateful.

I was maybe going to have to go to court, but they never called me, sooo, I don;t know what happened, but she was in big trouble.

ROFL @Coloma !!!! Tears in my eyes!!!

I hope they took the little boy away from her….did the cops take the boy from you and put him into protective custody at least for that time when they couldn’t find the mother?

I took him to a ranch in front of where I found him.
The mom had pulled over and he jumped put of the car. I had been hanging back behind them as I was fearful she was about to cause a bad accident.
I pulled over and asked if everything was okay and he said his mother was scaring him with her driving.
I had him go up the hill a little ways and told him to grab the fence and hold on to it.

I asked the mom for her car keys, said I would take her where she needed to go.
She refused, and was obviously screwed up on something.
She peeled out and almost ran over me and made a U turn onto the highway cutting off a motor
home and cars on a narrow bridge and took off.

I walked the boy up to the ranch and called the police. It took then 2 hours to arrive and take a report. Long enough for her to go home, fall asleep and wake up again to go searching for the child she didn’t remember what happened to!
I know it went to court, but I was never called to testify, maybe she had prior issues, I don;t know. The police had the full story from me.

I think he was released to his father.

A few months later I received a notice to attend a citizens awards dinner at the police dept. but no subpeona to go to court.

Dunno if it was legal, but it was a-okay in my eyes.

Wow. You’re my hero, @Coloma. You never did say how old he was though.

The clear and obvious difference between the story that @Coloma told and the scenario shown in the @bongo‘s video is that @Coloma witnessed a crisis in the making where a life was at stake. The video of the scene on the train shows a crisis being created because the train operator doesn’t have an effective policy (or personnel) to handle scofflaws. How difficult would it have been for the conductor to simply notify police to meet the train at the next stop and remove the free rider?

@Coloma took immediate and effective action to prevent a possible tragedy, and what happened on the train could have easily created one that didn’t need to occur.

@Dutchess_III

He was 8 or so I’d say. He was a little trooper. There was a big group at the ranch, it is a boarding facility, and he was really excited to watch the horses being shod and everyone at the ranch, mostly women, were amazingly accomdating, caring, and we had a great time while we were waiting for the sheriff. I sensed he had experienced his mothers dysfunctions before as he was very casual about everything., but, understood what was happening at the same time. Poor little guy.

The police called me the next morning and said the father was very grateful for my intervention. I hope the mom got the help she needed. :-(

@CWOTUS I see your point, but, remember, when something unfolds that quickly, one just acts in the moment. I don’t see anything wrong with the man that removed that kid from the train, maybe the conductor was afraid the kid had a weapon or might attack him.
Maybe the conductor was a little guy and the kid was bigger than him. Who knows, but, IMO, what had to be done was done.

But @Coloma, my point is that the conductor only had to notice and inform the fare-dodger that he had noticed. At that point any reasonable person would have either paid the balance due on the ticket or gotten off the train. The conductor should have had nothing else to do, except note (in this case) that the person was cheating, and send a message to police at the next stop that assistance was needed. There should not have been a standoff, any other passenger involvement, or a forcible ejection. Neat, complete and peaceful – and on time. If the policy were well known and routinely enforced, then the scofflaw problem wouldn’t even exist.

The conductor has a duty to keep the other passengers safe too. The policy the conductor did follow was well known and routinely enforced. @CWOTUS your way of handling it will give the scofflaw exactly what he wanted, a free ride home.

He was allowed to ride to the station just ahead of his declared destination. If he would have tried that on the Long Island express and delayed the commuters there, I dare say he would have fared far worse.

@CWOTUS

I do see your point, but, I’ve gotta go with @WestRiverrat ‘s philosophy, which I neglected to share myself. Yes, my thoughts were along those same lines, the conductor protecting his passengers and then vigilante guy offers to be the deputy so the sheriff signs him up in the moment so he can get the stage safely into Dodge. lol

Really, @WestRiverrat? Not being a regular train or subway rider myself, I’m not aware of that, but it seems preposterous. The normal policy on trains is to check every passenger’s ticket prior to leaving the station? To hold up the train while some snot-nosed kid refuses to obey the rules? To enlist other passengers in ad hoc ejections, without regard to anyone’s real safety? Is that any way to run a railroad?

Actually, the times that I have ridden the rails in Europe, the conductors only checked the tickets while en route. I still can’t imagine what’s going on in this video. And having a cop take the kid off at the next stop is hardly my idea of a “free ride”.

@CWOTUS because he was still a minor, he would have gotten a stern lecture from the Bobby and been released. The conductor did not enlist anyone, the gentleman volunteered to help.

The description under the video makes it clear the train was stopped one station before the kid’s destination.

I am not a regular rider of the English rail system either, but the descriptions of the incident in various articles I looked up gave information about the conduct of the conductor, the kid and the citizen that stepped in to help. I also got the input of several of my British friends.

Well, I take my hat off to you for researching more of the details around the video. I hadn’t seen the description that you saw, and I certainly didn’t talk to any British riders.

Still… if the bobby had taken the kid off the train and delayed him (legally, as I’m sure they could while they checked his ID, ascertained his age, contacted a parent to come pick him up, etc. – and then charge the parent for the fare and penalty and the administrative costs subsequent to the detention), then it wouldn’t have been “a free ride” – and none of the other passengers would have been inconvenienced in the least.

But what do I know? I don’t have to run a railroad. What we saw still doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe I’m just out of touch.

@WestRiverrat The kid isn’t a minor, hes 19. He would have been arrested and cautioned most likely and if he didnt pay a penalty fare (usually £20) he would have had to go to court and possibly pay alot more