No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

The following letter was written in 2006; it has been slightly modified. At the time my husband was my boyfriend. Even though I was mostly a bystander in the incident, I feel like we both survived it because I have been mugged at gunpoint before and suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. It’s difficult to describe what chemical reactions happen in my body when I encounter violence. The silver lining is that I now know for sure what my heart had long suspected: the man I love is a hero and I am blessed to have him in my life.
Dear Mayor Newsom,

I’m writing to let you know of an incident that occurred on the 6 Parnassus bus on Saturday night June 24th at around 10:30 pm. This is very difficult for me to rehash and I shake as I write, but I believe that it is important you know.

My boyfriend and I were heading home from work and we boarded the 6 on Market and 5th heading toward the Haight. Sometime later on Market, a group of young rowdy people boarded the bus and headed toward the back. We were sitting on the driver’s side next to the back exit doors and there was a young lady sitting behind us with an IPOD.

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When we got to Haight and Gough someone from the rowdy group exiting the bus grabbed the young lady’s IPOD and there was a struggle. She was tangled up in her stuff and someone else was trying to grab her purse. She seemed to be being dragged off the bus head first.

My boyfriend jumped to help her and pushed someone off her. He ended up off the bus struggling with a group and I couldn’t see him because it was so dark on that corner. I was terrified and could tell he was being ganged up on.

The bus doors closed and I thought the bus driver was going to take off so I yelled, “Don’t go! My boyfriend is out there!” The bus driver opened the doors and this is where it all gets crazier. Somehow my boyfriend and the young lady who got mugged got back on the bus. The young men who had attacked them were off the bus, but trying to get on. The bus driver would not close the doors to keep them off. He wouldn’t do anything. I’m not even sure he called for help as soon as the incident began. He had both the back and front doors open and one guy got on from the front and continued to threaten my boyfriend and tell him he wanted to “bust his lip”. At one point the guy spit on my boyfriend and got off the bus again.

There were many times when the bus driver could have closed the doors for our safety or yelled that he had called the cops, but he did nothing. People on the street were yelling at him to close the doors, but still he refused to act.

Someone got on from the back door, then the guy who spit on my boyfriend got back on through the front doors. Eventually, three guys were beating up on my boyfriend and I looked at the bus driver and screamed, “Have you called for help!?” This is the only time I saw the bus driver act and get on the phone.

I do not know what made the men stop beating on my boyfriend, but when they did he was bleeding all over the bus. Nothing about this incident is pleasant, but I feel that it was exacerbated and prolonged, by the driver’s ineptitude. He did absolutely nothing to protect us and he endangered a life in the process. I never even heard the driver’s voice until the attack was over.

I did not expect him to intervene physically, but at the very least he could have dealt with the emergency by treating it like an emergency and not something that would resolve itself. None of us knew if the assailants were armed, but we were all aware that they were dangerous. I am not even sure that the driver would have stayed if I hadn’t yelled, “Don’t go! My boyfriend is out there.”

My boyfriend ended up taking an ambulance to Kaiser’s emergency room. He has two black eyes, two lacerations, and a broken nose. Today he has to go to an oral surgeon because he is experiencing numbness in his front teeth. My boyfriend is an amazing person who was simply trying to help a woman being attacked. He jumped to her aid without thinking because those are his instincts.

On Wednesday the 28th we went to S.F.P.D. Investigations Bureau and the Inspector (who was wonderful) said the driver should have closed the doors or hit the emergency button. The Inspector said at one point, “No good deed goes unpunished.” I hope that is not true, but that is certainly what it feels like. Now we have ambulance, medical, and dental bills to deal with and yet I know even in hindsight my boyfriend would have still helped that young lady because she needed it.

Bad guys are bad guys and I don’t expect anything from them, but I expect more from MUNI drivers. The next time someone could end up dead. Please look into this, I feel we were all put in unnecessary danger. There is footage that can be reviewed. Driver’s need to be trained to deal with these situations.

Sincerely,
Future Unknown Mami