NY POST CALLS ASPIE A KOOK

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the transit stealing aspie has hit again yeah its news but he doesnt deserve to be called a kook



http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/bus_bust_for_transit_kook_pu8Wdpy6gAi8SbmbfxQftO

Bus bust for transit kook
By LACHLAN CARTWRIGHT, JAMIE SCHRAM and TOM NAMAKO
Last Updated: 9:07 AM, September 1, 2010
Posted: 5:40 AM, September 1, 2010

This time, he's really gone off the rails.
A Queens man who has made a career of stealing subway trains and impersonating transit workers was collared for the 27th time yesterday -- after allegedly swiping a bus in New Jersey and taking it on a joyride to Kennedy Airport.
Darius McCollum, who suffers from Asperger's syndrome and has an encyclopedic knowledge of trains and MTA procedures, slipped into an unsecured depot in Hoboken around dawn and made off with a Trailways coach that had been left with its keys in the ignition.
"I bet they won't leave the keys in the ignition again," he told the cops who arrested him.

McCollum, 45, who has been menacing transit agencies for three decades, this time came to the attention of the NYPD-FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force because he was bizarrely carrying a Koran, a prayer blanket and federal emergency-response manuals when he was busted.
"It made us think, what was he up to?" a police source said. "He said he liked driving buses. He's very smart."
No one realized the bus was gone until 8:30 a.m. when Trailways workers finally noticed it was missing and called cops, who tracked it through its satellite global-positioning system.
McCollum was pulled over at the Van Wyck Expressway near Queens Borough Hall at 9 a.m. by officers who said he "acted like a gentleman."
He was charged with grand larceny and possession of stolen property.
McCollum's mother said her son is being encouraged by friends who work as transit professionals.
"If they want to stop him, they can stop him," said Elizabeth McCollum from her North Carolina home. "He knows everybody in the system."
When asked about his adventure last night as he was being led from the 103rd Precinct station house, Darius said he was returning the bus to Jersey since "that's where it came from. I figured I'd bring it back."
McCollum, who has been rejected for employment by the MTA several times, started swiping subway trains in 1981, when at age 15, he hopped on an E train and took it to its terminal at the World Trade Center.
Additional reporting by John Doyle and Michael Blaustein







http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/queens/bus_bust_for_transit_kook_pu8Wdpy6gAi8SbmbfxQftO

wait where it says that?

in the title of the article

So?
"kook n : someone regarded as eccentric or crazy and standing out from a group [syn: odd fellow, odd fish, queer bird, queer duck, odd man out]"
I think someone stealing a bus and acting like it wasn't a big deal might come off as crazy or odd to a normal person, don't you?

Freedom of the press. They're just using action words for their headlines.

defiantly a kook

Sounds to me like he's having a great time making fools of the entire transportation system. 27 times??!

Give me a break. They're sleeping on the job. If he's done it that many times, he must by now be aware of the consequences and just doesn't care. Doesn't sound like he's hurting anyone or doing it out of malice. Sounds like a "kook" to me! Heck, I'm a kook sometimes, and I call my own kids kooks. They aren't insulted by it.

I firmly doubt the Post intended the term to apply because he has AS. It fits his actions, so....

He's a kook! It's not really a very derogatory term in my view.

I am not worried about the kook thing. News does this all of the time.

I am more worried though about what he was carrying with him. This guy know the internal workings of the transit systems in New York City, more so than the security officers of the system. What would happen if Terrorists would befriend this person to get his information.

The solution to this problem is for the MTA to hire Mr McCollum as a security consultant. However, being a government agency it will never happen. I hope that one day, the citizens of New York City do not have cause to regret the MTA turning this person out.

errrr he IS kind of a kook. he just happens to also be an aspie.

plus, this is the NYP. i am not american, but that newspaper is kind of a rag compared to other publications like NYT isn't it?

Uh I don't see the issue of him being called a kook. He did the crime, he must not be protected from that label because he has AS.

The NYT is a very highly regarded paper, and to some extent, I'd really like to take the NY out of it, as it is so widely circulated. I'd put the NYP on par, or slightly above most regular newspapers. Definitely far above things like "The Enquirer"...

oh, okay. i've only ever read the times, and not the post, so my assumption was incorrect. thanks for clarifying!

he IS a kook, and not because he's an aspie. Kooks can come in any shape, race, gender, or mental spectrum.

why don't they just hire him?

Perhaps the use of the word 'kook' is purely incidental to the fact he's an Aspie.

As a Kink, I don't think that there's anything wrong with the word, Kook.

The New York Post has a history of using sensationalism and off the wall descriptions to sell papers. A few years ago when a terrorist by the name of Al Zarqawi was killed the Post had a photo of his dead body on the front page and right next to his mouth there was a caption bubble that read "Warm up the Virgins."

As for McCollum I remember the 1981 incident where he somehow obtained a motor-man's operating handle and train keys and hijacked a train.