Police are on the hunt for two individuals who were filmed jumping off a moving MBTA Red Line train into the Neponset River in a stunt that's now sparked a criminal investigation. The video, surfacing several months after the fact, has gone viral on social media over recent weeks, showing the daring duo leaping from the train as it traveled between North Quincy and JFK Station.
Boston 25 News, which first posted the footage online, reports that the transit police are eager to identify the pair and proceed with filing criminal complaints. "First and foremost, the stunt depicted within the video is incredibly dangerous and could easily lead to a fatality. Additionally, the actions depicted within are illegal," a spokesperson for the transit police told d Boston 25 News.
The trend of such risky acts is not new to the Boston area. Earlier in the year, an incident dubbed by The Boston Globe as the "Red Line surfer," showed a man riding atop the same train line, capturing the public's uneasy fascination. This individual, however, opted for a bridge as his stage – the Anderson Memorial Bridge – and was filmed taking a seat atop the carriage to disembark, rather than performing the acrobatic feats seen in the latest incident.
History, it seems, does not only repeat its lessons in the grand theater of nations and peoples but also in the actions of youth seeking a chasm between the mundane and the sublime – or at least, a dip in the river. A previous warning issued by the MBTA Transit Police after the "surfing" event seems to have gone unheeded. "The actions taken by the individual in the video were not only dangerous but also illegal," the transit police warned at that time, as documented by Boston.com.
As authorities continue to investigate the incident and public reactions swirl online, the quest to identify the duo behind the leap continues. The MBTA Transit Police are urging anyone with information to come forward, in an attempt to prevent future incidents of a similar, dangerous nature.
