Murders of the Homeless on the Chicago Blue Line: Not Just an Isolated Incident!
By Stephen Wilson and Thomas Hansen
It was a horrendous discovery! On Monday 2nd September at 5.30 A.M. the police found four people had been shot while sleeping on the cars of a train on the Blue Line in Chicago. One of the victims who was badly injured, 60-year-old Adrian Collins, was quickly rushed to hospital. Tragically, he died.
Police speculated that the 4 victims may have been homeless. It later emerged that Adrian Collins was a homeless person who had fallen into deep dire straits and had been evicted from his westside apartment in 2023. The incident happened on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Blue Line which stretches between the Chicago O Hare International Airport and Forest Park.
Homeless people have long considered the Blue Line as the most dangerous one where victims can be robbed, assaulted, abused, raped, strongarmed, and in this case, murdered.
The police issued a statement claiming this was 'an isolated and random attack.' Although the culprit was quickly detained, arrested and charged, the motives have yet to be fully established. However, it is highly questionable whether this incident was 'an isolated and random incident.' Homeless advocates are right to suspect that such attacks on homeless people were a culmination of years of blatant anger, aggression, and hostility against homeless passengers by some train staff, security, as well as criminal elements.
A spokesperson for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless called the murders “A glaring example of a pattern of violence, suffering and cruelty people experiencing homeless face everyday... We cannot write this moment off as a tragic, isolated incident, but must acknowledge is the result of direct result of systemic failures.” The facts are that the homeless people on the streets can't find a refuge or reprieve from the constant threat of crime. They constantly face danger. City shelters which cater for the homeless are often as unsafe as city parks, car parks or cellars.
The level of aggression against the homeless cannot be underestimated. For instance, in the early hours of the morning, some Chicago fire engine drivers intentionally switch on their sirens to waken up the homeless, some train staff can throw out some passengers who have not paid for 'another ticket' and some security staff board trains with dogs snarling away at passengers.
Also particularly disgusting is this little game conducted by some CTA employees to make the trains “smell better” when there are homeless persons riding. The trains are often sprayed with a dangerous toxic 'to disinfect' the train. When staff state they would like to spray the homeless with such a spray you can imagine the level of hatred some callous people harbor against the homeless. It would be no stretch of the imagination to wonder how huge is the gap between spraying passengers with disinfectant and spraying them with bullets.
In addition, a lot of this verbal and physical aggression is stoked by corporate and social network media who portray the homeless as 'the aggressors.' Haven't some people got things upside down? Most research and investigative journalism demonstrates beyond any doubt that the homeless are mainly the victims of crime and not the perpetrators! There is even a name for hunting down homeless people called 'Hobo Hunting' which has resulted in homeless people being murdered. Self-styled vigilantes can patrol some streets and take the law into their own hands.
Reporters for StreetSense have covered those incidents and sharply observed many unpleasant incidents on the trains for years. The reporting of Jessika Bialik and Steven Larsen has uncovered a lot of aggression against the homeless. This aggression does not only come from criminals but some staff. These writers are joined by many other Chicago reporters who work for different media.
Being sprayed or sleeping next to a toxic spray certainly can threaten a person's health. Bialik describes the spray as “It's like a combination of Lysol, mint tea, alcohol, and gasoline. It smells absolutely terrible. Smelling it gives you a terrible headache for several days. CTA employees spray it very close to homeless people.” Bialik of StreetSense was a witness and recorded a situation where the homeless were cleared out of a car and moved next to the other more dangerous cars. Bialik wrote, “Those homeless people were forced into other cars where they had no protection against thugs and criminals and totally out of control teenagers who walk from one end of the train to the other, kicking homeless persons, taking their backpacks, hitting them in the face with other backpacks , threatening to kill, punch, rape , etc.”
Bialik found that “Constant theft, beating, fights, rapes, groping and kicking go on most of the night, on those back cars, if there are no guards or police or K 9 personnel around.” But what if those security personnel are also abusive? What protection then, is there for the homeless? Bialik succinctly sums the danger up by stating, “So much violence, so many people willing to use it on a moment's notice.” {Read the *brilliant articles by Jessika Bialik listed below.”}
Bialik talks about some of the past foolishness on the Blue Line also, in her article of May 27, 2023. She asks, “What about the Blue Line? Thursday night, one guard told a homeless person he would get “thrown off the f*cking train while it is rolling!” The guards seem to have no supervisor and seem to not have to answer to the CTA train driver—who of course does everything possible to avoid having to talk to the guards anyway… “That same night, Inter-Con guards entered a train car and passed out cigarettes. Most the guards smoked…
Some passed around pints of vodka…”
And the Red Line is not the safest train to ride, either. There was just a knifing in broad daylight! Maggie Duly of Fox 32 reports that Chicago police seek the public’s help in identifying the attacker who stabbed someone on September 1 at the Wilson Red Line station in Uptown. He may also be connected to an attack on August 1.
In 2019, Steven Larsen of StreetSense witnessed incredible events on the Red Line. He wrote, “Last night, I saw Chicago at its worst. I saw security guards at the Howard Red Line station chasing homeless people, pushing them, threatening them, trying to bait them into a fist fight, screaming at them and yelling they would 'Beat their fucking ass ' if they tried to get back on the train without tickets.' [It is unknown what every came to pass with the guards and the company involved in that night’s harassment of the homeless.]
Trains and violence in Chicago. Note that crimes are up over the last ten years on the CTA trains. In fact, an article in Chicago has just revealed that “Violent crimes per CTA passenger trip are more than triple this year compared to 2015, a WBEZ analysis has found.” This means that we are all in trouble…
Why?
Ridership is way down; crimes are way up.
In other words, this means if you ride the train, there is a growing chance that you will be a victim of crime…
Assault, theft, rape, murder.
As for the homeless, many of whom sleep on the train lines—especially the Blue Line and the Red Line trains—chances they will be killed or go through other crimes or harassment, are 100 times greater. They are asleep during the wee hours of the night… while persons with guns and fists and worse are walking past them, trying to decide what theft or sex or violence they wish to impart on them.
We are talking mainly about the 68,000 plus native Chicago homeless—not the newly-arriving migrants—who do not seem to be at all interested in risking their lives by sleeping on the trains—even in the winter. Their numbers on the train are almost zero in comparison with their native-Chicago homeless brothers and sisters.
The migrants from Venezuela, Colombia, and other nations are by definition homeless.
A further issue is why, despite an epidemic of mass shootings, America is flooded with so many guns and just about anyone can purchase a gun over the counter or illicitly if need be? The USA has a strong gun culture where people jealously defend their rights to bear arms. Some Americans love to cite the Second Amendment of the Constitution as if this is the second Bible. The right to bear arms is viewed as synonymous with 'freedom and culture.' This view is not confined to a few gun enthusiasts or fanatics.
According to a survey undertaken by Pew Research {April 2024} research revealed that 51% of Americans think it is more important to protect the right of Americans to their own guns, while 48% say controlling gun ownership is more important. {See “Key Facts about America and Guns,” by Katherine Schaeffer.} Tightening gun control in America remains highly problematic. It is important to understand that tightening gun control is not the same as a total ban or a first step to an outright ban. There has to be a much more rational and open-minded discussion rather than the on-going deadlock of 'us via them' rhetoric.
Despite all this grim news concerning crime on trains it is worth imagining whether things could be different. Might we visualize riding on trains differently? Could we not create a much more pleasant railroad without so much intense fear? It is a highly problematic vision but worth striving for! In some cultures, railways are alluring, attractive, and captivating.
For example, in Moscow you can step onto a train where the cars are used as mobile museums, art exhibitions, or places to read poems. You can go on exciting excursions where you learn all about the history of rail travel. A car might be a place where a child learns the joy of reading and telling stories.
In the 19th century, many French mocked the impressionist artist Monet when he claimed that he sought to capture the beauty of railway stations and steam trains. He painted his masterpiece the 'Saint Lazare Station' in 1877. Where many people viewed the railways as ugly and evil, he saw beauty! The Russian rail magnate Savva Mamontov also faced incredulity when he claimed there was much beauty in the railways. He argued, “The eyes of the people must be trained to see beauty everywhere, in streets and railway stations.”
That surely suggests that people also have to perceive the unseen spiritual beauty in the homeless!
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*For further reading:
Jessika Bialik, “Red Line Trains, Unsafe at any Speed?” StreetSense, December 1 2022, https://streetsense.substack.com/p/red-line-trains-unsafe-at-any-speed
Jessika Bialik, “God Damn Nerve, CTA Employees Misbehaving.” StreetSense, January 4, 2024, https://streetsense.substack.com/p/god-damn-nerve-cta-employees-misbehaving
Jessika Bialik, “Guards on Chicago Trains Love Their Booze and Loud Music!” StreetSense, May 27, 2023, https://streetsense.substack.com/p/guards-on-chicago-trains-love-their
Maggie Duly, “Chicago Police Seek Help Identifying Suspect in Uptown Red Line Stabbing,” Fox32 Chicago, September 8, 2024, https://www.yahoo.com/news/chicago-police-seek-help-identifying-160653700.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sb2dpbi55YWhvby5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACgjCyr1imRZ_Q6J5_mheLbDHgdjBH99I85hE3mXpq-btE9aIu7O-RyDYBGqxxV9IgDLsACyTW4X61pWE-zg_3cIlJtpZ5GZAuP1vy3W3eqABmE6kzlf0yalIR-p9xPGLKsIfDB7nBKG38CgWvNqSXMqW6Eh8sz-BaZmx2DX367J
Steven Larsen, “Harassing the Poor and Homeless on the Chicago Red Line Trains: Unknown If This Guy Got Fired,” StreetSense, August 29, 2024, https://streetsense.substack.com/p/harassing-the-poor-and-homeless-on
Chip Mitchell, Alen Loury, Anna Savchenko, and Amy Qin, “CTA’s high violent crime rate keeps away what’s needed to ward off crime: passengers,” WBEZ Chicago, September 6, 2024, https://www.wbez.org/criminal-justice/2024/09/06/ctas-high-violent-crime-rate-keeps-away-whats-needed-to-ward-off-crime-passengers?subscription=true&utm_source=Newsletter_Daily-Rundown-Non-Member&utm_medium=WBEZEmail&utm_campaign=Daily_Newsletter_Daily-Rundown_Sponsored_20240906&utm_content=9/6/2024&DE=WBEZEmail
Katherine Schaeffer, “Key Facts about America and Guns,” Pew Research Center “Short Reads,” July 24, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/