Updated: "What do you want me to do about it?" A warning for parents on the subway
Latest update: I received a call this evening from a general manager at MTA who received my report. He was very professional, and very concerned about the behavior we saw. He is opening an investigation into this incident and apologized for what we witnessed (and overrode the bullsh*t "sorry, no badge number" response). It took a while, but this response makes me feel a lot better about MTA. (And from now on, no kid rides the subway with me unless he keeps a death grip on my hand!)
We were riding the southbound V train. The doors had just closed and the train was pulling away from 34th Street station when we heard shouting from one end of the car. A 5-year-old boy had become separated from his mother on the platform and had accidentally boarded the train without her. Now he was alone, and very frightened. I took his hand and my husband and I exited the train with him at the next stop, 23rd Street, so that we could seek help from MTA employees.
On the platform, several other passengers tried to alert the driver of the train that there was a lost child. Though there's no way the driver didn't hear a platform full of passengers shouting about a lost child and pointing to a very lost-looking little boy, he drove off without pausing to call for help. (Despite massive failure on the grown-ups' part, by the way, this little boy was a champ. He knew his name, age and mom's cell phone number, and hardly shed a tear the whole time.) We then walked through the turnstiles to the station agent and informed him that the boy with us was lost. The station agent’s exact words were, “What do you want me to do about it?” We asked him to call 34th Street station; he said that was not possible. He said that his only option was to call the police, something that he seemed very reluctant to do. The station agent was so unhelpful that another passenger overhearing the exchange, a father who later said he just kept imagining his son in that situation, walked to the pay phone and made the call to the police that the station agent was so unwilling to make. By the time that the boy’s mother had arrived at 23rd Street station to find her son (and the other passenger had nearly finished making his report), my husband was still unsuccessfully trying to get the station agent to call the police. From the agent's demeanor, I honestly believe we could have walked right out of the station with the kid and he would have done nothing about it. Lost children must be common within the subway system. Does MTA not have a plan to protect children lost in the subway, or did these employees not follow procedure? Neither option is okay. MTA's own marketing campaign urges passengers to contact MTA employees when a safety issue arises. We did, and were appalled by the response.