OC GIRL BREAKING NEWS--I was at Ballston Metro with the Crazy Guy

I'm sure all of you Orange Line riders are very upset about the delay this afternoon. You heard it here first, peeps...what really went down at Ballston Metro today during rush hour.

Ann, my work buddy, and I were on our way home shortly after 5 pm. We got off the Orange Line train at Ballston Metro and suddenly, we hear commotion on the train at the opposite platform (in the direction of New Carrollton). Clear as day (even with typical rush hour noise and commotion), we can hear this Crazy Guy just yelling while in the train. He then continues his crazy yelling on the platform. Ann and I paused as people who would just stop and stare while something insane was happening before our eyes. The train just stayed there while this Crazy Guy was spewing his crazy talk. He seemed very angry...at what or who, we don't know. Ann says, "Should we tell people not to go down to the platform? What if he's got a gun or something?" After thinking for a few seconds (cuz really that's all the time we have to come up with these kinds of decisions), I tell her, "I'm gonna go tell the station manager; I'll be right back."

I went to where I thought the station manager would be and I find people telling (what appears to be) a metro maintenance worker about the Crazy Guy. The worker doesn't really seem to know what to do. I repeat to her, "Look, there's a Crazy Guy on the platform...you might want to tell the Metro police." There was, after all, a lone cop on the other side of the turnstyles (he appeared to be dealing with juvenile delinquents at the time). The worker tells the station manager, who then waits for the cop to be finished with the juveniles before he tells him about Crazy Guy...because clearly it's more important to stop kids who skip out on their metro fares than to prevent a major catastrophe.

Before the cop finally heads down to the platform, we hear multiple people saying, "the guy's got a gun!" I tell Ann, "Looks like it's time to go." Ann says, "We've gotta stop people from going down to the platform." I'm thinking that's the station manager's job, but what do I know? I don't work for Metro. Ann and I decide to look for more cops instead (because clearly the cop more interested in ticketing juveniles couldn't handle Crazy Guy on his own). We run up the escalators and find that there are no cops around. Are you freakin' kidding me? Where are the cops when you need them?

Within seconds, one cop arrives. One single girl cop. Ann and I had the same reaction--"oh great...one cop and it's a girl." But then, the cavalry arrives. Six...Seven...no, EIGHT cop cars arrive. Cops come out in full riot gear and shot guns and run down the escalators. Ann says, "Still no one is telling people not to go down there." So, what do we do? Ann and I position ourselves on either side of the Metro 'down' escalator and tell people, "Look, don't go down there. There's someone on the Metro platform with a gun...allegedly."

People start asking us (as if we're the authority) what's going on. We tell everyone the same thing...we're not sure....we saw this guy acting crazy on the platform...people who were getting off his train were saying that he had a gun...we're trying to err on the side of caution here. Suddenly, the cops come up the escalator...with Crazy Guy (who's still angry and screaming and yelling). They take him to my bus stop and force him down to the ground. The cops then search every inch of his body (and frankly, if I was a cop I would be pissed about having to search his dirty, filthy body). Following this search, they then search the huge duffle bag he was carrying (I think he was homeless). Crazy Guy reveals there is a hatchet in his duffle (while all of this is happening, people are still coming up to Ann and me like we're the authority on what happened).

The police removed several items from his duffle and placed them in a plastic bag. They then hauled him into the car.

Ann asks me, "do you think we're gonna be in the news?" Nah, no one's gonna talk about how Ann and I did our best to prevent major chaos. I do have many concerns about how Metro handles these kinds of escalated situations. First of all, the whole Crazy Guy incident caused a major delay on the Orange Line. Where were the Metro employees who should've been warning commuters about the delay? Whatever happened to PlanBdextrous (the one time a Metro slogan comes in handy we can't even use it)? Or how about keeping commuters from the platform for safety's sake? What if the guy had a gun and was shooting up the place? If it was up to Metro, we probably wouldn't have known.

In the end, everyone was safe. I'd like to think that Ann and I played a role in that.



There's Crazy Guy, on the ground in that bus stop.