Beat the Disabled Homeless Guy Harder
By Steven Larsen, our reporter in Evanston
Author’s note: I wrote this article in December of 2020. I immediately started sending it out, wanting to tell the story of the disabled homeless man who was beaten by police officers. There are many people who have decided to Detective Klopack this story away. They have wanted me to stop talking about it, to accept that things like this happen, and to go on and think about other things, never knowing exactly what happened to the man in the wheelchair – or the other homeless people like him so many nights. I have written to everyone I can think of, from elected officials to advocacy groups and from newspaper editors to all the aldermen along the CTA Red Line. I still do not know who the man was, why he was beaten and arrested, or why nobody has responded to me. I still do not know the identity of the small dickey driver either. Nobody has wanted to share his name or his badge number. This story is embarrassing—to many people, I would assume. It is now almost a year later and I still have no answers.
It is early morning, Monday, December 7, 2020, at the Howard CTA Station. The train conductor has closed the doors on the last car (facing north) of his Red Line train and is preparing it to go back south to 95th Street. This will become the “first car” of eight on the trip back under the Loop and down to 95th. The tradition is to make the first car “smell better” because of a couple homeless people halfway asleep on this car that was the last car, on the trip north.
Run #939 must smell good. Well, at least the first car or the “head car” must, according to the conductor.
The conductor or “driver” as the passengers call him, is an older White man who is overweight, wearing a dickey under a long-sleeve CTA shirt with the badge number scratched out, large behind, and winter boots. My friend Jessika and I try to see the badge number somewhere on this unattractive man but to no avail.
We will watch the small dickey guy for almost a month and never find a badge number on him.
To keep all passengers – including more homeless people – out of the car, he has placed a homemade device under the door handle leading to the “second car.” The device is called a jack, though some unhappy passengers on the train say he has “shoved his d*ck” under the handle.” It looks like a baseball bat and is about that size. At both ends, there is a hook – one goes under the handle to disable it, and the other one he slams hard into the floor to hold the jack still. It is virtually impossible to open the door from the outside.
As tradition goes, the conductor sprays a concoction of cleaner/mint/bleach all over the seats, including right next to the homeless people. Whether it is hard to breath or not, he does not care. He opens all the windows, even though it is 30 degrees outside. The stout conductor sprays the concoction everywhere. He sprays it on a few seats and scrubs them. He wears a sweater under his shirt and seems to be overweight enough that a little cold air will not bother him. The unhappy people on this car are told they may not open the windows, and that if they do not like this rule they may go to one of the other seven cars.
The other seven cars do not have many rules. People smoke weed, drink beer, and smoke cigarettes. The conductor can do nothing at all to control the people on those seven cars and therefore does not try. To be sentenced to the seven cars is worse, of course, than sitting in the first car with no heat and with all the windows open. Teenagers and young adults who are called “tigers” run through the cars, doing pretty much whatever they want, and the passengers, some prone, some asleep, others chatting, and some unconscious from having been knocked out by the tigers, are their unhappy prey.
The tigers commit a variety of crimes, from selling weed to threatening, hitting, beating, kicking, robbing, and raping (or threatening to rape) the persons on the seven back cars. Most of the persons being threatened with rape are single young boys who are not affiliated with the tigers. Some nights this activity goes on for hours, other nights for 30 minutes, other nights not at all.
The train pulls out, the cold air pours in, and people in the first car gather their coats about them. “Welcome to Red Line Run #939,” announces some mysterious person. “This train is bound for Downtown and 95th.” Eventually, as more unhappy passengers enter the car, they will close the windows, as they do every single morning. They are allowed to do this because they are “workers who contribute to society” etc.
A week later, the chubby driver on run #939 is up to his old tricks. He rushes onto the car and opens a window, then retreats into the little driver room.
A week later, he rushes onto the car but this time his game is thwarted. There are so many people yelling and screaming at him when he starts opening windows that he runs into his little secret room and gives up—for tonight. Passengers insist they will feel uncomfortable in such cold weather with all the windows open as the train moves. “Leave us alone and drive the train,” they yell at him. Of course, I am paraphrasing their comments screamed in the middle of the night.
A few days later, the small dickey guy rushes onto the car with an entourage. They spray their concoctions right next to people and the driver throws every single passenger off the car. “End of the line, folks, you must leave this car,” he yells. Everyone shuffles off and heads to other cars or elsewhere. The entourage rushes about, washing seats, disinfecting poles, washing the floor, and spraying the concoctions.
There is a great deal of joking about how much homeless people smell. The driver leads the jokes, and the maintenance people engage in the laughter and guffaws. He is very careful to close the door after he and the workers enter and exit to do their cleaning. He allows what must be respectable looking people who are going to work to enter the car.
The serious and hard-working citizens enter the car and participate in the comments and joking about how bad homeless people smell. They glare out at the people standing outside the car and assume the people are homeless, smelly, and criminals in one way or another.
There is no way of knowing whether these unimportant and impolite persons who are allowed to sit in the first car are in charge of million-dollar corporations, are going downtown to clean toilets, or make French fries all day. However, they have showered immediately before getting on the car.
One of my best friends is sitting, reading a paperback in the head car. She is a very tall white blonde. I met her in a psychology class and we became instant friends. She reports that one woman, wrapping her little coat about her, tells a joke about the homeless, turns up her nose, and bursts out laughing. The driver and the workers all laugh, also. She reaches into her purse, pulls out a little bottle of body spray, sprays it around her, and settles in for a safe, clean-smelling ride out of the Howard station. She will be delivered to her destination, smelling like dollar-store violets.
The next visit to the last-car-becomes-first-car run #939 is a little more violent. The driver approaches the car, unlocks it, and walks inside. Although he turns to close the door so people cannot enter, a couple slip past him as he is distracted by a tall thin Black man sitting at the very front, right outside the secret little room.
There is a wheelchair sitting in plain sight also.
Chubby dickey-wearing little driver on run #939 starts yelling at the passenger “You know you have to get off this car” and the passenger yells back “Leave me alone and don’t try to start stuff.” I am paraphrasing.
They both repeat the same messages several times. The train car sits there all this time with the door open and the cold air rushing in. Finally, the driver storms off. The passenger repeats words to this effect: “Why are you trying to start something for no reason?” Nothing happens for a few minutes, as the cold air continues to enter the car. The chubby little dickey guy walks off the train.
Suddenly, two police officers rush in and grab the man. It is hard to see from the end of the car (and from other angles where Jessika is filming—unfortunately the video is lost because of some problem with her cellphone) and where other people are filming with their phones. The officers wrestle the man down to the ground and scream at him to “relax” as they try to handcuff him.
The passenger insists that he is disabled and has nerve problems in his back. The officers continue to force him down to the floor, getting him into position facedown. They attempt to handcuff him, as he insists that he is doing nothing wrong and the driver has started the whole problem.
One of the officers, a heavy sandy-haired male officer punches the man half a dozen times while the passenger complains and screams. Two more officers enter the car and help wrestle the man off the car. There is a lot of noise and chaos. None of the officers is Black. They are joined by a White female officer with blonde hair.
A Black man sitting across from me whispers, “I hope they don’t kill him! I hope to God they don’t kill him right here.”
Two officers enter to retrieve the passenger’s wheelchair. It is hard to hear what is happening or why. There is yelling out on the platform. The sandy-haired heavy officer comes back into the car and talks with the driver.
The officer leaves the car.
The small dickey driver goes into his little room.
The doors close.
An announcement blares news of a trip to downtown and 95th.
It is December 29th.
The train leaves the station.
Run #939 goes on.