Here’s a perfect example. A few weeks ago, I get onto a Brown Line car behind some guy whose probably in his late 20’s, early 30’s. He makes a beeline for the only open seats available – in the little booth-like section at the front of the car. Not all CTA cars have these 2-seater boothy things. If a car does have one, it’s either at the front or at the rear, depends on which way the train is traveling. Whatever. Usually, when a car has one of these unoccupied booths, it’s the first seat taken by a passenger. The second seat is then usually taken later on when the other seats are gone. This is because the booth is like having your own little private compartment, and if someone is already sitting in one of the two seats, you feel kind of weird sitting next to them if other seats are available elsewhere. It feels like you’ve intruded on someone’s little private suite.

On this particular morning, those two seats were mysteriously vacant. The train car was full, but no one was sitting in those seats. The guy in front of me was probably as surprised as I was that they were available. We both thought we had just won the El lottery.

As we were both making a beeline to the penthouse suite, the dude in front of me came to a complete halt at the narrow doorway that separates the booth from the rest of the car. Since my momentum was lunging me forward, I quickly slipped around him just before slamming into him, and sat down on the first seat, closest to the doorway. As I was sitting, two things went through my mind.

1. Why did the guy in front of me come to such a sudden stop and not continue to one of the coveted seats?
2. Why wasn’t anyone else sitting in these seats?

Now, having lived in Chicago for many years, I’ve developed the kind of urban sixth sense that everyone in a big city tends to develop. That sense of how to drive at high speeds through bumper to bumper traffic, which corner burrito stands to avoid, and how not to make eye contact with the crazy ranting guy on the El lest you be his next target of conversation. I knew, as I was sitting down that something was not as it seemed. My mom always told me that if something is too good to be true, it always is.

With all this going on in my head, I was able to only sit on the far edge of the seat, knowing deep inside my soul that it was probably best to not fully engage my new found seat.

Then I smelled the urine. It was soon after that, perhaps 3 ms or so, that I then smelled the feces.

To be continued….

A List Apart: Articles: In Search of the Holy Grail

Hats off to us.

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We found the defendant guilty of the crime. The odds were stacked against the defendant as he had confessed to the crime on videotape to the Chicago Police Department. And he was recorded on audio tape bragging about the murder during a CPD wiretap surveillance operation.

The most interesting part of the trial for me was that, after I befriended one of the county deputies assigned to the courtroom over the 3 day trial, I was told by him that the CPD actually had the crime itself recorded on videotape using a new prototype night time street surveillance video system.

I asked the deputy why this important evidence was never used by the prosecution during the trial. He said that the judge ruled that because the surveillance system was still being tested and that the night time imagery was not as clear as he would have liked, he could not allow the state to present the video and images as evidence.

Maybe my morbid curiosity got the better of me, but I asked the deputy if there was any way he could get me a copy of some of the video or images taken by the camera. He hestitated but he liked me and I think it made him feel important. So he mailed a CD to my home with some amazing footage of the crime. I must say I’m very surprised that the prosecution was not allowed to use this footage during the trial. But hey, I’m not a judge.

So I’ve taken the most compelling parts of the video and edited them down with iMovie to make what I feel is an eye opening vantage point of what goes on in the world of urban gangs.

The link for the movie is below. I will warn you that if you are watching this at work, either use headphones or turn the volume down a bit, but you must HEAR the crime as well as see it.

You will need Apple’s Quicktime software to watch the movie. You probably already have it, but if not, the free download is available here: Quicktime

You can click the link below to begin streaming the movie in your browser or right-click and save the movie to your hard drive and watch it after the download is complete. The movie is approximately 12 MB, so be patient regardless of whether you click or right-click.

View Movie