Atlanta: Man Attacks People at Random, Pushes 58 Year Old Lady into Train’s Path; 27 year Old daughter Hit by Train Saving Her Mom…
ATLANTA – MARTA police have identified the man who allegedly pushed a woman onto the tracks at the Midtown MARTA Station Sunday, prompting a chaotic scene that ended with the woman’s daughter critically wounded.
Police identified the suspect as Christopher Patrick Brooklin, 28. He is charged with aggravated assault and battery in a public transit station.
Christopher Patrick Brooklin
Witnesses told CBS46 the man was behaving erratically.
“We were downstairs, and a man just started punching people like just going crazy,” said Aiesha Bowden, a witness.
Police said the man pushed the 58-year-old mother onto the tracks. The woman’s 27-year-old daughter jumped onto the tracks to try to help her mother. As of now, police don’t have a motive and said the incident appeared to be random.
“Everybody was trying to pull them up, but it was too late because the train was coming,” said Bowden. “The train was already coming, and in the process of everybody trying to pull them out, it was just too late. The train was going too fast.”
The daughter remains in critical condition at an area hospital, said Cpl. Brian Lauda of the MARTA Police Department.
Lauda did not release the names of the mother and daughter. He said the mother was treated for her injuries and released. Police believe she was not hit by the train. Police continue to review surveillance video that they are not releasing at this time.
Police said bystanders were extremely helpful and alerted a MARTA police officer who was at the station. The officer was able to take the suspect into custody within 90 seconds of the incident.
Brooklin is currently being held in Fulton County Jail.
Her daughter leapt to the rescue, but was hit by the train herself…
Trains across Atlanta ground to a halt Sunday afternoon after officials say at least one woman was shoved off the platform into the path of an oncoming MARTA metro train, WXIA reported.
“One person was allegedly pushed wayside at Midtown Station late this afternoon and two people possibly made contact with a train,” a spokesperson for the public transport service told the station.
“We tried to pull them out (of) the track. The train was coming (too) fast, it tried to stop but it couldn’t,” another witness told the station.
Police told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the woman’s daughter tried to save her mother.
“MPD can confirm that the victim in this case was pushed wayside by the suspect,” police Cpl. Brian Lauda told the paper. “The victim’s daughter jumped on the tracks in an effort to assist her mother and was struck by a train.”
A witness told Fox 5 he saw the woman get dragged by the train.
“I saw her legs dangling, and she was crying for mercy … it’s sickening. So she gets dragged a good little distance. For about 10 minutes, we’re sitting there, not knowing if she’s dead or alive.”
A video shot by witness Chris Wisdom shows one woman begin to crawl out from underneath a MARTA train as passengers disembark above her.
The video shows her head and shoulders appear from below the train car before she sits along the track as bystanders try to decide how to help.
(Watch full-screen for best viewing)
MARTA shut down the north-south line of the service and replaced it with buses while first responders swarmed the scene, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The women were 27 and 58 years old, according to WXIA.
The women were both “conscious and alert” when they were both rescued from the tracks after about 30 minutes, the AJC reported. Both were taken to the hospital, where the older woman was stable and the younger was in surgery, according to WXIA.
Officials have yet to describe what may have prompted the incident, but a witness told CBS 46 she saw a man shoving people around the platform.
“We were downstairs and a man just stared punching people, just going crazy … he was punching everybody, he hit the girl in the back of the head for no reason,” she told the station.
Christopher Patrick Brooklin, 28, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and battery, MARTA police said in a statement on Twitter. They said the younger woman remained in critical condition.
I’ve reserved a little “savage” for if I need it.
( I suspect you have as well)
I call it my “psycho” switch.
If it’s flipped, I just see targets.
I tell my household, when they’re angry, hurt, disappointed…
Let it go, but take a little portion of it and tuck it away in a little box in your heart.
If the time comes, unleash it on your target.
All of it.
Instantly take it all out appropriately on an attacker who would try and harm you.
Target practice for self defense includes silhouettes with a splatter burst dot @ the heart, and the tip of the nose. (Plus, the hips and liver at times) Again, to instill in them (and me) that if they’ve been threatened/ attacked to the point they have to fire on a person…It’s no longer a person, but a collection of targets.
When I work, my wife has orders that if someone tries to enter our home and do them harm, she’d better KILL them all. I’ll help scrub up their brains when I get home.
That goes for wolves, wildcats, and bears as well.
The ladies in my home are beautiful, loving, Christian women…But they’re also the descendants of savage Indians and pioneers. We’ve got Scottish-German-Pioneer/ founder-Injun blood. None of those groups just lay down and take it.
Sir, I salute you for your mindset!
I know that switch all too well.
A couple of years it almost had been activated when two muslim men very obviously tried mugging me.
When I realized they were only a couple of steps behind me (I was on the way to my car) I flipped open my knife and held it slightly sideways so that they could see that I was ready to fight back at all costs.
They decided to stalk another victim.
Hard target!
In the South we have a saying: If a bear is chasing you and your friend, you don’t have to outrun the bear…
You have to outrun your friend.
Harsh, but true.
You sort of “outrun” the others by “showing your fangs,” so they decided to look elsewhere for easier prey.
And we’re not that cold-hearted here.
I know of a gentleman who jumped on a bear with a hunting knife…to save his dog. And he won! Wouldn’t want to mess with him…
Addendum: I strongly recommend you to read two books by Dave Grossman: “On Killing” and “On Combat”.
I know for sure the latter is also available as an audiobook read by the author on Audible. Very educative!
It also touches target practice – the how to’s and dont’s. He for example recommends using the most realistic looking targets – preferable life sized pictures of actual persons.
I laughed tears when he recounts to his readers examples of training gone wrong.
Some police department trained excessively disarming an armed opponent. The drill was quite basic: one LEO had a dummy pistol pointing it on his colleague and the other promptly disarmed him and returned the dummy to start over again.
So one day one of these officers was threatened by some crackhead pointing a gun at him. The officer did exactly what he trained for:
He disarmed the criminal fast as lightning and gave the gun back to him!
The startled criminal ran away as fast as he could 😂
Train like you fight, fight like you train, eh?
I’ve heard of officers shot because they instinctively started gathering up their spent brass during a shootout…Just like they were required to do at the range.
We‘re simply too civilized, too domesticated in order to do what should have been done instantly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve reserved a little “savage” for if I need it.
( I suspect you have as well)
I call it my “psycho” switch.
If it’s flipped, I just see targets.
I tell my household, when they’re angry, hurt, disappointed…
Let it go, but take a little portion of it and tuck it away in a little box in your heart.
If the time comes, unleash it on your target.
All of it.
Instantly take it all out appropriately on an attacker who would try and harm you.
Target practice for self defense includes silhouettes with a splatter burst dot @ the heart, and the tip of the nose. (Plus, the hips and liver at times) Again, to instill in them (and me) that if they’ve been threatened/ attacked to the point they have to fire on a person…It’s no longer a person, but a collection of targets.
When I work, my wife has orders that if someone tries to enter our home and do them harm, she’d better KILL them all. I’ll help scrub up their brains when I get home.
That goes for wolves, wildcats, and bears as well.
The ladies in my home are beautiful, loving, Christian women…But they’re also the descendants of savage Indians and pioneers. We’ve got Scottish-German-Pioneer/ founder-Injun blood. None of those groups just lay down and take it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sir, I salute you for your mindset!
I know that switch all too well.
A couple of years it almost had been activated when two muslim men very obviously tried mugging me.
When I realized they were only a couple of steps behind me (I was on the way to my car) I flipped open my knife and held it slightly sideways so that they could see that I was ready to fight back at all costs.
They decided to stalk another victim.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hard target!
In the South we have a saying: If a bear is chasing you and your friend, you don’t have to outrun the bear…
You have to outrun your friend.
Harsh, but true.
You sort of “outrun” the others by “showing your fangs,” so they decided to look elsewhere for easier prey.
And we’re not that cold-hearted here.
I know of a gentleman who jumped on a bear with a hunting knife…to save his dog. And he won! Wouldn’t want to mess with him…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Addendum: I strongly recommend you to read two books by Dave Grossman: “On Killing” and “On Combat”.
I know for sure the latter is also available as an audiobook read by the author on Audible. Very educative!
It also touches target practice – the how to’s and dont’s. He for example recommends using the most realistic looking targets – preferable life sized pictures of actual persons.
I laughed tears when he recounts to his readers examples of training gone wrong.
Some police department trained excessively disarming an armed opponent. The drill was quite basic: one LEO had a dummy pistol pointing it on his colleague and the other promptly disarmed him and returned the dummy to start over again.
So one day one of these officers was threatened by some crackhead pointing a gun at him. The officer did exactly what he trained for:
He disarmed the criminal fast as lightning and gave the gun back to him!
The startled criminal ran away as fast as he could 😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Train like you fight, fight like you train, eh?
I’ve heard of officers shot because they instinctively started gathering up their spent brass during a shootout…Just like they were required to do at the range.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes! Grossman mentions that example, too 😄
LikeLiked by 1 person
Both those books have been on my list. Since you reminded me I went ahead and downloaded them…Thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re welcome! I’d advise you to get the audiobook read by the author though. I got my copy on Audible. It’s worth the money.
LikeLiked by 1 person