Man lies hurt and injured at BART station for 2.5 hours

[Liberal_in_LA]

Man found hurt at BART station dies at hospital

(05-08) 20:10 PDT San Francisco -- A 22-year-old UC Berkeley graduate who lay injured and unconscious at the bottom of an escalator at Civic Center Station on Wednesday morning, and later died, was mistaken for a homeless man by early morning commuters, according to BART police.

BART police are still trying to piece together the final moments in the life of Konstantin Tomashevsky, who was pronounced dead at San Francisco General Hospital.

"They thought he was some guy snoring," said BART police Lt. Andy Alkire of the passers-by. "They assumed he was a homeless guy."

Shortly after 3 a.m., BART video surveillance shows Tomashevsky at the top of the escalator at the United Nations Plaza entrance, apparently waiting for the station to open, said BART spokesman Jim Allison.

Nearly two and half hours later, around 5:30 a.m., a station agent called police for assistance after a commuter alerted the agent to an unconscious man at the foot of the escalator. When police arrived, Tomashevsky was still breathing, Alkire said.

---------

Alkire said that after crime scene tape had been set up, two commuters told investigators they'd seen Tomashevsky on the ground at the bottom of the escalator earlier in the morning but thought he was homeless.



According to BART police, Tomashevsky had suffered traumatic internal injuries and a small cut to the back of his head. His death is being treated as suspicious.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/09/BAO01DBLLG.DTL

[truedelphi]

1. This is one of the reasons why I now live in a rural county.

Bay Area was my "home" for some twenty four years.

But is any place like this really anyone's home? Energy of that place is frantic, fear filled, and unaware. And that is on a good day.

[Arugula Latte]

10. To me there is a scarier vibe in many rural areas.

[CreekDog]

40. At the Civic Center BART station? Are you kidding? It's not dangerous

San Francisco is remarkably safe for a city its size. As for the Bay Area, San Jose and Fremont are frequently listed on the safest large cities list again and again. In fact, I think San Jose is the safest city with more than 1 million people.

[comrade snarky]

13. What a load of garbage you spew

Maybe it's not for you but it's my home and I love it.

Shall I insult your home now? After all in lake county you must be what... 10 minutes to the nearest meth lab?

[Arugula Latte]

66. I'm more afraid of rednecks with guns than of "urban" folk.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Even IF he had been homeless...

He did not deserve this.

As you treat the least of these...

Damn.

:grr:

[malaise]

3. +1,000

They thought he was a homeless man so ignoring him was OK. :cry: :cry:

[Better Today]

7. Give it a rest, they said they thought he was sleeping. You've never

stepped over a sleeping homeless person on a public right of way?

[madmax]

11. No

See my post #8.

[superduperfarleft]

19. Wow, you wake up every sleeping homeless person you see to check if they're okay?

I'm sure they greatly appreciate it.

[madmax]

21. In the grand scheme of things

I'm powerless to make great changes. Situations such as this I do try to help because I can.

Being powerless is very frustrating, I'm not homeless, English is my first language, not intimidated by titles or uniforms and don't give a rats ass about inconveniencing Mr. Policeman from his coffee break. In addition I don't just hit and run. I stay a few - just to be sure things are being done. Guess I'm very distrustful of authority. :shrug:

[madmax]

8. Absolutely

WTF is wrong with people. NO BASIC HUMAN DECENCY?? I worked in NYC for 14 years commuting by train into Penn Station. Anytime I came across a situation I would find the nearest cop and get help.

It's beyond sickening.

[Better Today]

14. You trust a cop to have any care at all for someone who seems homeless? Wow,

I don't know that world.

Edited to add: I guess if they know he's hurt, but if they too thought he was sleeping they'd just give him a kick.

[Liberal_in_LA]

28. Lesson - if you pass out in public, be wearing your best clothes

or no one will help. What a shame!

[lib2DaBone]

4. Someone should have reported that he had a marijuana cigarette on him..

..the SWAT Team, Mounted Police and 12 police cars would have arrived within minutes...

[crim son]

6. Ain't that the sad freaking truth! n/t

[Quantess]

16. Truest response yet.

[fleabert]

25. maybe elsewhere, but not in SF...not a priority for cops there per mayor Gavin...nt

[mdmc]

34. 1

[NYC_SKP]

5. I'm surprised, sad to say, that he didn't lay there longer before they figured it out.

I wouldn't have been surprised to read that it had been 9 or 10 hours.

How many dozens, or hundreds, walked right by this man?

Why didn't camera monitoring staff make a call?

Why didn't a BART cop check him out? I'm pretty sure at least once one would have come by this man.

Well, it's because it's a city where that kind of sighting is the rule, not the exception.

It's not only SF, of course.

Thank goodness some commuter had the courage/judgment/presence of mind to check on him.

How sad that it was too late.

:mad:

[lonestarnot]

9. Yeah people just step over the body these days and keep step'n w/o even looking back.

[comrade snarky]

15. Where in the article do you see that people stepped over him?

The only place I see that is here in this thread.

Homeless people sometimes sleep in BART station entrances. They are safe places to get some rest. It's a fact of life in the city. If he was showing no signs of injury and looked like he was asleep it's not the least bit surprising no one tried to wake him up.

What should we do? Huh? Should I wake up every sleeping person I see. I saw a guy asleep at Ocean Beach today, should I have run out and checked his pulse? Held a mirror to his mouth? Asked a series of questions to determine competence?

Jesus the self righteousness in this thread. Like no senior citizen ever died alone in a small town and wasn't found for a month. Oh no, it's those nasty inhuman monsters who live in big cities.

So fucking smug.

[Art_from_Ark]

18. I agree with some of your post

But a senior citizen who dies unnoticed in a small town usually dies in his or her own home, not in a public place. A neighbor lady did that when I was a kid. We visited her occasionally, but she chased us off when she thought we had stolen/killed her dog (which we didn't). I don't think the poor woman had too many callers-- no family that I knew of, and she chased away people who did come to call on occasion. So it was not surprising to learn that she had been dead in her house for several days before anyone noticed.

At the same time, in my small hometown, at least, despite all the complaints I have about it, no one is going to be walking over someone who is sleeping on the sidewalk. Yes, even though it is in the heart of bu$h country, I am sure that someone there would quickly go over to someone else who appeared to be motionless lying on a sidewalk or some other public place, to check up on them at least.

[comrade snarky]

31. So it's one thing to abandon a crazy lady

To die alone in her home but it's not OK to walk by someone who looks asleep in a city with a severe homeless problem. Gotcha.

You try walking down Market Street at 4:30 in the morning and waking all up all sleeping homeless people to check and see if they're alive. I'm sure it would be a much friendlier greeting than that old lady. Oh yeah... I'd love being woken every 10 minutes by some busybody who wants to know if I'm alive or asleep. Life on the streets is so easy who would need rest?

How may people who don't have homes stay in your nice little town? Do you have a park? A central square where the band plays every Sunday? Would you walk by a person leaning up against the bandstand or stretched out in the grass who appeared to be asleep on a sunny Saturday afternoon?

Really? Honestly?

You sure about that?

Well sure you are, it's them nasty big cities where people don't care about each other. Let me tell you something about San Francisco, it's a story I've told before on DU. A few years ago a guy in the suburbs went nuts. Snapped big time. He got in his SUV and drove to the city where he began running people over on one of the neighborhood commercial districts. A place with shops and restaurants full of people enjoying the afternoon. He hit several, wounding some badly and drove up the street. He then turned around and came back for another run.

What do you think those nasty, jaded city people did? Run?

No.

With no thought of themselves people grabbed the wounded and pulled them to safety at risk of their own lives. Residents opened their homes as refuges to complete strangers. A few even tried to distract the insane driver from the wounded by using their own bodies as bait while the driver was raging up and down the street.

That's San Francisco and that's why I get angry when someone pulls the small town moral superiority crap and that's why I wont sit silent while some fool insults my city.


:edited for tpyo

[Art_from_Ark]

39. Who said anything about abandoning a crazy lady?

She chased us kids away. She chased everyone away for that matter. Are you going to call on someone who doesn't want you to call on them?

As for San Francisco, I've been there, even lived there for a while, and I have a very different impression of the place. People who witness a crime, traffic accident, etc., seem to take a Sergeant Schultz approach to it-- "I see nothing, NOTHING".

[comrade snarky]

41. Hey, you're the one with the story

Are you going to go around waking up every homeless person in a city? Hell, every sleeping person according to you. I guess I just dreamed that story. I guess I dreamed all those people banding together to fight the fires after the 89 quake or cleaning up and helping their neighbors. Nah, couldn't have happened in a mean ol' city.

Is it perfect? Hell no but it's the home I love and I'll defend it and the people who live here just like you'd defend the people in your small town from charges they're inbred, insular morans who wouldn't know what a book was if one fell off a cross country flight and hit them in the pointed, big eared head as they unloaded new klan robes from the pick-em-up truck.

But then again I wouldn't do that. Enjoy your little town and keep right on believing you're all better than those nasty people who live in cities. It's funny, I always hear about how people in big cities look down on small towns.

Sure seems to go the other way sometimes, don't it?

[Name removed]

49. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[comrade snarky]

55. Got anything to say besides childish insults?

I thought not.

[Art_from_Ark]

57. Wow, you certainly have a weird impression of "flyover country"

Come out and visit it some time. Not that I'd be there to welcome you, though, since I now live in the Tokyo area.

But getting back to the original source of our disagreement--
Someone taking a nap in the downtown park in the afternoon is not not going to be a cause for concern, unless the person is in an unnatural position. If something looks funny, it won't take long for someone to make sure that everything's OK.

Also, you don't seem to understand the difference between someone wanting to be left alone in their own house, and someone sprawled out in a public place. If someone wants to be left alone in their own house, you can't force yourself on them.

And if there is a major fire, tornado, etc., in my hometown area, no doubt neighbors would get together to help each other out, like they did after the Centerton tornado a few years back.

[comrade snarky]

58. That was exaggeration

An attempt to make a point that flew right past you apparently, sorry. I don't think of flyover country that way. It's where I'm from, though admittedly a big city in flyover country. I'm sure people in your beloved small town would rush to help each other in an emergency just like people in the city do.

So anyway, as you say, back to the story.

Was this guy in "an unnatural position"? Does the article say he was sprawled out? No, it does not.

It says the people who walked by thought he was asleep. That's all back story that has been made up whole cloth right here on this thread by people who can't separate imagination and pre-conceived notions of what a city is like from reality.

Does anyone one this thread know that "something looked funny"? Why is it the automatic assumption that he looked injured and no one cared? That's what bothers me.


:Edited to correct a statement

[NuttyFluffers]

24. people don't fucking read is why. 3-5:30 AM people, 3-5:30 AM. rather lonely hours, those.

the news report here on the local TV news said supposedly 2 women saw him, but left him assuming he was asleep. it's considered pretty fucking rude to wake people up that early in the morning, homeless or not. and no, not everyone who's asleep by the BART station during those wee hours of the morning is homeless. sometimes you are napping because you're waiting for the 4AM bus or waiting for the 6AM BART (unless it's a Sunday, and then it's 8AM)

[Johonny]

27. I agree

but I thought they had a BART cops that run sweeps of the stations even at those hours? Apparently not.

[comrade snarky]

33. BART stations are underground

With stairs and escalators down the the MUNI level plazas. From there you take another trip down past the MUNI trains to the lowest level where the BART trains run. That whole plaza level is closed off by rolling doors when the trains stop running at around 2 am.

This guy must have been at the bottom of the stairs from the surface to the MUNI level. There are small areas there even if the station doors are closed. It isn't uncommon for a homeless person to sleep there. It's out of the wind in a city that's almost never warm at night, not even in the summer.

BART cops run sweeps of the stations but that's the inside plaza boarding areas. If they sweep the outsides I doubt they are terribly worried about a person sleeping quietly. Civic Center is the closest station to the 11th street clubs so it may not be that unusual to see a suburban partier waiting for the station to open.

[Gormy Cuss]

45. Not to mention, Civic Center has many street people living or hanging out there.

I'd like to be shocked that people walked by him but at that stop it doesn't surprise me. Unfortunately regular commuters may have developed a MYOB attitude, thinking that those sleeping on the benches or BART/MUNI areas would prefer to be left alone.

I don't know a fail-safe way to ensure that those who do need help will get it without annoying the people who want to be left alone.

[comrade snarky]

52. Neither do I and that's the tragedy

I've been yelled at by people I've bothered and called an ambulance for someone lying there unresponsive. I guess the lesson is if you are hurt and need help, try to look like it.

I wish there were a way around it.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Richard Steele]

51. That wound may be deeper than you think. It's emitting the scent of hot cheese.

You have a BLESSED day now, y'hear? :hi:

[comrade snarky]

54. Whatever dude

Your opinion means less than nothing to me.

Keep lashing out at strangers ya' hear. I'm sure it fills some need in your life.

[Odin2005]

12. WTF is WRONG with people!?!

[woo me with science]

17. So much for meeting gentle people there.

:mad: :mad:

[Quantess]

30. The sooner that people disabuse themselves of the notion

that SF is a kind and gentle place full of friendly hippies with flowers in their hair, the better. That stereotype is so far from reality, it's ridiculous.

I like to call SF "liberal with a knife". :D

[NuttyFluffers]

63. true. but then what's Oakland? ;)

liberal w/ a gun! :D

we're a gentle place if you're kind and have at least remedial street smarts. but we also can definitely hold our own.

[superduperfarleft]

20. Oh good, another "Oh my THOSE people are horrible!" story.

Of course O8)We O8) would never do something like that, and :evilfrown: Those People :evilfrown: should be ashamed of :evilfrown: Themselves :evilfrown: . If only the world were populated with people like O8) Us O8), the world would be a much nicer place.

They thought he was a fucking homeless guy sleeping. It happens. This is a non-issue, other than the fact that a guy died suspiciously.

[KittyWampus]

22. In NYC there are drunks passed out, junkies nodding and homeless sleeping in doorways etc

I am sure the same situation exists in every city of the world.

My condolences to this person's family.

[Hannah Bell]

61. actually, it doesn't. or didn't.

when i was a teenager in seattle, you rarely saw homeless people sleeping on the streets, or junkies nodding. post-reagan, they suddenly appeared en masse. then i went to live in osaka, a quite big city, where i could walk anywhere in the city at any hour of the day or night without fear, & without seeing anyone sleeping on the streets.

things have changed quite a bit, i hear; & yet, i know what i experienced in three years of living there. i did not see a single person, not in osaka, not in tokyo, not in otsu, not in any city, small or large -- ever -- sleeping on the street.

whereas today i can find homeless camped out within 10 blocks of my house in the small town i live in, which also has beds for over 100 in its various homeless facilities. and an unemployment rate of 15%.

[NuttyFluffers]

23. dude people, there's next to NO ONE around between the hours of 3-5 AM at Civic Center

a lot of you people have either zero reading skills or have never been to the city overnight waiting for BART to open back up. i have. there's NO ONE around -- except sleeping people (homeless or not, sometimes they are fellow revelers like me) and maybe one person every half hour or so walking by.

my thoughts is that he was a bit drunk coming back from a party, calculated the BART wrong, and in a bit of tipsyness stumbled down the stopped escalator. the main escalator off Civic Center (by UN Plaza) is a pretty long drop, and the sharp metal on the escalator can easily cut the back of your head if you are tumbling down. at 3 AM there's no one around to see it -- Civic Center isn't a late night party district, it's a gov't business district. the Warfield is nearby, but not even close enough to notice someone a good distance away tumbling down some stairs.

there might be foul play involved, but i doubt it.

[fleabert]

26. thanks for inserting the reality check.

if i tried to wake up every homeless person i ever saw sleeping in Pacifica or SF, i'd have been punched more times than I care to guess. and i've also been in that area late at night/early am- ghost town! people think SF is some crazy metropolis, but it's really a small town with lots of people, they practically pull in the sidewalks at 10pm in some neighborhoods.

this is sad and suspicious perhaps, but not callous on the part of the people who might have seen him.

[NuttyFluffers]

62. exactly, even Manhattan NYC, Tokyo, & Seoul are mostly sleepy on those hours

and those cities are said to never sleep. i've walked the lonely hours around Rockefeller Square and Broadway around 2 AM -- it's no Time Square to be sure. I've walked the lonely hours at Shibuya and Ebisu and they are filled with swaths of silent alleys and the occasional pocket of activity. Hongdae, Edae, and Shinchon thought to never sleep -- and in many ways way more active than anything i've seen in NYC or anywhere -- have mere stragglers and isolation during the lonely hours, especially on early weekdays. it's a very special time where the city seems coldest and most lonely, but then beautiful because it looks like you have the whole place to yourself.

it's a suburban/rural misunderstanding that urban areas are as bustling at every hour and on every corner as they are midday and afternoon.

[Dr Morbius]

29. Tragic. I am glad the police are still investigating.

A fall down an escalator can surely cause traumatic internal injuries, but getting the crap beaten out of you can do that also. It is premature to assume anything, and very wise to first conduct an investigation.

I've seen homeless people on the streets of Chicago, in the train stations and elsewhere. Even under the streets; there are parts of Chicago with lower and upper streets. It isn't unusual for me to walk on. Also, it's worth mentioning that I see several people whom I recognize.

For example, there's a guy who tends to walk around the skyscrapers of the Loop wearing a security uniform. He travels around, different streets and corners, asking people for money because he "...just got locked out from his job." I asked him the third time he asked me for money how many jobs he had; he simply turned and walked away. And there's a woman who likes to park her car on an entrance ramp to the expressway, explaining she's had car trouble and asking for help. I've seen her half a dozen times with her "car trouble." Kind of hard to find a cop when one sees these con artists; that's the way it goes, I suspect.

Given these experiences I find it very hard to fault those who chose not to get involved. Of course, I am not unsympathetic, and sometimes a few bucks of mine go to help these unfortunates find a hot meal. Not too often, though, because word gets around that one is a soft touch!

[4lbs]

32. Has anyone asked why this person was up and about at 3 AM on Tuesday night / Wednesday morning?

In pretty much every place in America, there is absolutely nothing going on at 3 AM during the week.

It's a shame he died because there was no one else up and milling around at 3 AM.

However, what was he doing up in the middle of the night, in the city, by himself?

[comrade snarky]

35. After hours clubs?

The regular clubs and bars don't shut down until 2 am and there are bands playing around the city every night of the week.

That and people live here, it's not one of those cities that doesn't have a population after the work day ends. A good friend of mine lives about 3 blocks from where this happened.

To suggest something nefarious was going down just because he was out late is ludicrous.

[4lbs]

37. That's not what I'm saying. Even when I was in my 20s, I would never be up at 3AM during the week.

I was always sleeping in bed.

I only stayed up late at clubs, bars, dancing, whatever, on Friday and Saturday nights. Never during the week.


Back then, during the week, I would have to get up early for school, or later work.

[comrade snarky]

42. Ever worked at clubs or bars?

Ever had a non 9-5 job? Ever worked at a job that included Saturday and Sunday giving you a weekend that falls mid-week?

I have. Maybe he did too.

Look, your posts read to me to be suggestion there's something morally lacking in a person being out late on a weeknight. That's pretty damn reprehensible if it's true.

[4lbs]

44. I didn't say that either. You misinterpreted what I said.

.

[comrade snarky]

47. Glad to hear it

No hard feelings I hope. :toast:

[Book Lover]

56. Who cares? Why is this relevant? (nm)

[NuttyFluffers]

60. uh, i've been up partying those hours before in SF, in my early 20, and now 30s

there are parties and nightclubs multiple blocks away, but they are there. the problem is a lot of clubs shut down at 2 AM while BART closes down at 12-1 AM. there is a night bus that goes to downtown Oakland every hour on the hour til 6 AM, but not everyone knows about it, and it has only been started in the past 3-5 years. however i, and many of my friends, have missed BART in the wee hours while partying on a weekday and had to park it for the night napping nearby. thank goodness for the new bus service, though.

if your city doesn't have it, understandable. but SF, while not like NYC, does have a vibrant nightlife. it is completely understandable to go to a show or nightclub on a weekday (especially at 22 yrs of age, you think you're invincible then) and then mess up the math on the return trip schedule.

[Rex]

36. The homeless really are invisible. Someone being homeless is now

the criteria for if you live or die on the streets. How charming.

[comrade snarky]

43. How does "thought he was asleep"

Equate to being invisible?

[Duer 157099]

38. So then we need to provide homes for the homeless, period

That way, when someone is seen "sleeping" on the streets somewhere, people might actually pay attention.

Solving homelessness is doable, if only society really cared enough to do it.

[handmade34]

53. thank you for that sentiment n/t

[Hannah Bell]

64. +100.

[NuttyFluffers]

65. i've replied repeatedly to this topic, but let me add i wholly support your idea.

if i could wave a magic wand to house the homeless and create 24-hour mass transit (subway/train/bus) in, out, and around urban areas i'd do it in a heartbeat. we have the technology as humans, we have the money, but sadly we too often do not have the will...

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Ignoring thigs like this, I fear, are hard wired

there are way too many incidents like this every year, and not just in the US.

[Marr]

59. This is a commentary on human psychology more than anything else.

http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/The_Bystander_Apathy_Effect

If one person responds, others will likely do the same. Few people will act on their own if no one else is.

*edit*-- actually, after reading the particulars of the case (the time and the place), I wouldn't expect anyone to check on the guy. It wouldn't be unusual to find a person sleeping in a place like that at that hour. Or at least, it wouldn't be so abnormal that you'd wake the person.