Anatomy of an intervention

Around 9 AM on June 2, I boarded a southbound Red Line train at the Thorndale stop. On the train, I sat down across from a slim, young Black man in a stained white T-shirt who was talking to himself. (I don’t know his name, so I’ll call him Luke.) Periodically, Luke spat on the floor and picked up a bag of shoes resting next to his feet, only to whip it back on the ground. He was visibly distressed, but not doing anything that hurt me, so I minded my own business and watched other riders do the same.

By KATIE PROUT

Before long, Luke stood up and took a few steps toward the seats closest to the door. Holding onto the handrail above his head, he started yelling at a young Asian woman (who I’ll call May) sitting next to the window. Luke shouted sexual, derogatory, and anti-Asian language in May’s direction, and at least once, thrust his finger in her face, leaning very closely into her space. As the train lurched on, May sat motionless in her seat, looking out her window and hugging herself. The rider next to her, who I read as white, was wearing sunglasses and staring into the middle distance, still as stone, except for the veins rising in his clenched arms.

If you live in a city and you take public transportation, you’re familiar with this kind of story problem: when someone is behaving in a way that is unpleasant or antisocial, you decide whether you want to change seats, switch cars at the next stop, or turn the volume up on your headphones and stay put. You think about which actions add up to risk, versus discomfort, versus you-do-you-andI’ll-do-me. But sometimes, a situation does escalate and can become dangerous.

For as long as there’s been public transportation in the city, Chicagoans have been having conversations about how it’s functioning (or not), who it’s for, and public safety.

KIRK WILLIAMSON

At that moment, I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid of May being hurt, and I imagined having to jump on Luke’s back to pull him o her; I also imagined having to pull another rider off Luke, the story of Jordan Neely’s death still fresh in my mind. I thought about the CARE (Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement) program piloting in 15 city neighborhoods right now, and whether it could be useful here. Under the CARE program, a city paramedic and a city mental health worker are dispatched to eligible 911 calls involving mental health crises. These responders “offer de-escalation, mental health assessment, referrals to community services, and transport to community-based destinations as appropriate.”

In interviews and elsewhere, CARE is described as trauma-informed, but sometimes, their teams are still accompanied by police, an institution—particularly in Chicago—with a history of creating or exacerbating trauma, not accommodating it. And, as Jorydn Jensen, executive director of the Center for Racial and Disability Justice at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, recently wrote in an opinion piece for the Sun-Times, “Fifty percent of people killed by law enforcement have a disability—primarily a psychiatric disability—with Black, Indigenous, and other people of color at the greatest risk.” May deserved to ride in peace and safety, but Luke also deserved to be de-escalated without being harmed.

Still yelling, Luke moved directly in front of May. Behind him, close to the door, another rider held onto the loop above the train door and watched Luke’s movements closely, frowning hard. People were making eye contact with each other with the same question in their eyes. Then Luke took a few steps back. Swiftly, nonchalantly, another rider—a buzz-headed femme in a flowered shirt and mask who I’ll call L—moved into the space that had opened up between Luke and May, and planted their body fi rmly between them. Why does this matter? Incidents like this happen, or almost happen, on the CTA every day, so why am I telling you about this one? Because journalists spend so much time reporting on what happens when violence occurs in Chicago, but it’s just as newsworthy to report on when it’s stopped, and talk about the how and why. Because it’s hot out, and statistically in Chicago (and the rest of the country), when the temperature increases, so do rates of violence. And because I’m personally interested in ways we can keep each other safe that go beyond doing nothing (although sometimes that is the safest and best option for yourself and for others!), calling the police, or turning to the weird kind of vigilantism that only makes a situation worse. When L stood up and gently moved between Luke and May, I realized I could do that, too. is a nonbinary, biracial 28-year-old; they had slept in late that morning and were hurrying on their way to work. As it is for thousands of other Chicagoans, the CTA is L’s main mode of transportation. gone after May and made sure she was OK. I gave her that packet of tissues. When I went to stand there, I leaned in and said something like, “Hey, it’s gonna be OK.” I didn’t look the friendliest with my mask and sunglasses on. I just hope she went on and got all the good things she needed that day.

After I joined L, another rider came up from the front of the train and stood next to me. Together, we formed a shield, blocking Luke’s access to May without engaging him. At the Sheridan stop, May swiftly exited, as did several other riders, who returned with a security guard. By the time at least three police o cers arrived, including one who wore a Thin Blue Line flag adhered to his vest, Luke was quiet and back in his seat. (In an email, CPD confi rmed that patches are not approved under their Uniform and Appearance Standards directive.) The police cajoled Luke o the train; when we pulled away, he was on the platform, talking to them alone. I don’t know what happened next: a FOIA request returned no incident report, which happens when a call doesn’t end in an arrest.

For as long as there’s been public transportation in the city, Chicagoans have been having conversations about how it’s functioning (or not), who it’s for, and public safety. Below are four. You’ll hear from L, the fi rst bystander who intervened that morning, on why they did what they did, along with their two regrets; Ti any Patton-Burnside, senior director of crisis services for the Department of Public Health and manager of the CARE program; and Andrea Chu, midwest organizing manager for Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago. And fi nally, you’ll hear from Je Rasmussen, who I was heading to interview that morning when I got on the train. When I told him what happened, Jeff, who has experienced public mental health crises in the past and occasionally uses the CTA for shelter, had his own perspective to share.

After that interaction, I kind of had two regrets, which I’ll go on about. I’m nonbinary, but I’m woman presenting, so I’m very aware of how people perceive me and the dangers that surround me just existing in the world. I was just trying to keep an eye out on what’s going on in my surroundings.

When Luke was just yelling in general, I was just like, “OK, it’s another person yelling, I’ve seen this before, we’ll just ignore it. And he’ll settle down after he’s fi nished with his rant to the ether.” But then he just kept going back to May.

When I saw him getting the extra pair of shoes he had from his bag to clap and intimidate her, I was just like, “Oh god, he could hit her! This is not OK.” I don’t know anything about this man. I don’t know if he was unhoused or homeless, and I don’t want to make any assumptions at all. But he was clearly, like, not in his right mind—saying something to this person did not seem like a safe choice. But at the very least, I was just like, “He can’t touch her; he will not invade her personal space.” And the two guys that were directly next to her weren’t stopping him from doing that. I tried to make it look natural, like I was just changing where I stood. I didn’t face him, I didn’t make eye contact with him, I didn’t want to engage him. I just thought, “You know, at the base of human instincts, object permanence [laughs]—just maybe block his view of her.” And also not give him access to her personal space.

I had some sort of resources: I took one self-defense class, for example. But even if I didn’t, I was in a better place mentally than May was to be able to respond in that situation, if it escalated further. She was crying. She just kept staring out the window, trying to be as invisible as possible. We were in between stops at that point, so even if you press that call button, he still has to go to the next station [with you]. And then thankfully, you showed up and I was just like, “OK, people are getting it! This is great!” I didn’t even realize that was going to happen, or even a possibility.

Tiffany Patton-Burnside, senior director of crisis services at Chicago Department of Public Health

“To date, the CARE team has not responded to any primary dispatches to CTA bus stops or train platforms,” said Tiffany PattonBurnside during our interview. But technically, they could: “If [a call] comes through and it’s on the CTA, that’s not a barrier. But there may be other barriers, like if the individual has a weapon, or if the individual is violent: then it would not be CARE eligible. It can happen, it just hasn’t happened yet.”

Do you see a possible role for CARE on the CTA in the future, both in responding to crisis calls, but also just riding the train, as a presence ready to help de-escalate a sudden crisis or connect folks to help?

So we—the Department of Public Health— and CTA have been meeting around what a CARE response on a moving CTA vehicle would look like, primarily on the trains. We’ve been discussing the trainings that the CARE sta needs specifically for rail safety. We have some working knowledge of CTA having some of their own security, so when we get to that place, we’ll probably start engaging with the security staff, so that they can be better educated on the CARE team and get to know who those team members are in their area or their district.

Is the circumstance that I described something that you could see CARE being a good fit to respond to? I know you don’t know all the details.

“There are a lot of things I just consider relatively unnoteworthy to experience on the subways,” L, which is a pseudonym for the bystander who intervened, told me in an email. L

One of my regrets was not staying with him and the police. Two stops later, I realized, “Oh my god. I just left him with two white policemen.” My second regret was this: I wish I’d

From what you’re saying, I don’t see why that would not be an appropriate CARE call. Like I said, I think the thing that we still have to