When a BART passenger was handed a note demanding her wallet and phone, the quick thinking woman took an original approach to thwarting the theft: She pretended to have a medical emergency, which seemed to scare the robber off the train.
In a tweet since made private, 32-year-old Oakland resident and BART passenger Julie Dragland announced the incident, saying that it happened at around 4:50 p.m. Friday, as her Dublin-bound train passed through San Francisco.
Dragland tells NBC Bay Area that she "boarded a train in Daly City and was heading home to Dublin when a person in dark clothing climbed onto the train in downtown San Francisco and thrust a note at her."
As you can see in the note above, the missive read (sic throughout) “There are 2 guns pointed at you now. If you want to live hand back your wallet + phone NOW + do not turn around and be descreet. Do not turn around until after you have left civic center + you will live.”
The Chron reports that initially, "Dragland — who does public relations work for a San Francisco video game company — said she mouthed 'help me' to a man standing nearby."
When s/he got off the train, she decided to pretend she wasn't able to give in to the note's demands.
“So I if I fake a seizure or fake like I’m passing out, I’m not even not complying,” Dragland tells CBS 5. “I’m scared and reacting so, I started slumped over to the left and started shaking and people started to notice and they’re like, ‘Are you okay? Are you okay?'”
“I probably looked very ridiculous,” she tells the Chron. “I slumped sideways and started shaking and crying. I closed my eyes and increased the vigor so people would pay attention.”
When two people came to her aid, Dragland showed them the note. She says she believes that that's when the would-be robber slipped away, getting off BART at Civic Center station.
Surprisingly, she says that the believed the suspect to be "an older white woman pulling a suitcase," CBS 5 reports.
Dragland reported the crime when she arrived in Oakland, CBS 5 reports, at which time BART police searched Civic Center station for anyone matching the suspect description, but didn't find a soul. According to KRON 4, Dragland "is not sure who handed her the note and did not see anyone with a weapon."
According to a tweet from BART spokesperson Alicia Trost, Trost "called the Watch Commander to make sure they were aware" of the incident.
"Someone called it in and we have train # so we can pull the footage to ID suspect," Trost tweeted.
UPDATE: BART Police have released these photos of the suspect, who is indeed female.
Since she wasn't actually robbed, Dragland says she won't press charges if the suspect is found, but NBC that she is "shaken up and will no longer sit on a BART seat with its back to other chairs behind it." However, she also "won't let the frightening encounter stop her from riding BART trains altogether."
Speaking with CBS 5, Deagland says the reason she resisted is because she had an international flight to catch later Sunday, which the loss of her phone and wallet would make extremely difficult.
“I was terrified and then I started to be like, is somebody really going to shoot someone for a phone and a wallet?" she told CBS.
"I don’t know. I started to question it a little bit, but I was still really scared."
Related: Roughed-Up Riders Suing BART For Inadequate Security