June 14, 2004
Subway Stealing Legend Arrested Again
The most famous metrophile* in recent memory, Darius McCollum, has struck again: He was found by police in the LIRR's rail yards in Jamaica, Queens, carrying various transit keys (engineer, universal, and switch), transit workers' clothes and a hard hat. The Post reports that McCollum had only been out of prison from serving ANOTHER transit-related offense for two months when this happened. The Lower East Side resident was "charged with attempted grand larceny, criminal impersonation, possession of stolen property, trespassing and possession of burglar tools." McCollum has been arrested 20 times before, most daringly as a 15 year-old who took the E train six stops to the World Trade Center. The director of Boy Steals Train, a play about McCollum, who befriended him said and is devestated by this arrest said McCollum was wearing "a hardhat and a reflector vest." McCollum is suspected to have Asperger's syndrome, which similar to autism, beacuse of his obsessive habits. Gothamist feels very badly for McCollum, because clearly he loves loves loves the subway (and who wouldn't), but his passion is a bit overwhelming and we do understand the police's concerns. We wonder what program a judge, doctors, and the MTA could put together to give him an outlet - hopefully there could be a way to harness his interest (yes, Gothamist is being optimistic, but, hey, sometimes it calls for it).
Read a Harper's article about McCollum. * And a metrophile "is a person who has as a hobby the study of metro (subway, underground) systems," according to UsefulReference.com. Hmm, McCollum is certainly a Type-A metrophile. Gothamist is happy to read nycsubway.org and leave the conducting of trains to the professionals.
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...a possible problem for homeland security?.....3 keys and clothes?.....this is no good....yes the man is extremely passionate and unbelievably detail oriented but so are our friendly neighborhood religous fanatics
i hope they don't throw the book at him for revealing just how crappy MTA security really is. i mean, if a borderline autistic can get his hands on the keys, who else already has?
jake - "i mean, if a borderline autistic can get his hands on the keys, who else already has?"
not to split hairs, but I am always amazed at just how resourceful and dedicated an individual with borderline autism can be once they set their mind to something. The bar may be a bit higher than you think in this case. But this is just my experience.
the mta should just give him a job as a mototman.
This story gives me a lot of confidence in the MTA's security procedures.
The MTA should definitely hire him. He'd be their ideal employee.
I think the MTA already has some wacky metrophiles conducting the trains. Think about it: you've all heard one of those occasional wacky conductors that tell you the oldschool names of the lines (IRT, BMT, etc), whether their platforms are upstairs or down, the nearby tourist attractions and every single connection to the LIRR, Metro North or PATH, the time of day, the temparature outside, while saying "All aboard!", all in one breath. Tell me those guys aren't just a little crazy.
Holy crap. Can somebody get this poor bastard some help?
We have been in the news a fair amount lately (the NYTimes again and NY Newsday), but for a sad reason. Darius McCollum, the infamous train thief, but who upon his last parole had started to become a member of our community here in NYC, didn't make it to a few meetings and fell off his own special brand of wagon, infiltrating a train yard in Queens where he was arrested on the spot. Lori Shery of ASPEN in New Jersey is working hard on his behalf and we're helping out to a moderate degree, but Darius is someone we know to have been wrongly incarcerated before, and now they may throw a homeland security type of sentence at him for the level of security the train yard was supposed to have (we're hearing from Darius' former legal aid lawyer that the DA may seek 15-life). This is horrible stuff, perpetuated by horrible ignorance
Michael John Carley
Executive Director
GRASP
The Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership, Inc.
www.grasp.org (under construction-opening SOON, we hope!)