Phone Force

Forget about hidden spy cameras, stealthy undercover officers (not the obvious ones dressed in American Eagle hoodies wearing outdated, yet surprisingly clean Sketchers, and grooving to headphones with no audio source), or safety hotlines that everyone ignores when they're muffled out of a loudspeaker. Today's most successful criminal-catching devices are camera-equipped cell phones-well, at least for the plethora of New York subway perverts.

Phone cameras began nabbing subway perverts last May when a male straphanger flashed two Catholic schoolgirls in Queens. The girls saw him the following week lurking around and watching them as they waited to board a 7:30 a.m. train for school. The students snapped a quick portrait and raced to find a police officer who promptly arrested the man while he was boarding a train.

Subway pervert number two, a blonde middle-aged man, was photographed last August by a 22-year-old Web designer after he was seen masturbating across from her on an Uptown R train. Once his photo was taken, he quickly zipped up and got off at the next stop. His photo soon appeared online at Flickr and Craigslist, as well as the front page of the Daily News. Within days of the photo's circulation, 43-year-old Daniel Hoyt was arrested. Hoyt was apparently fond of public exposure, having been arrested previously for similar acts; the Daily News reported that five other women came forward claiming someone looking like Hoyt had also flashed them. He later pleaded guilty to one charge of public lewdness.

On March 15, the Daily News (jeez, they really have the underground perv beat covered) reported that a 15-year-old girl snapped a candid shot of yet another subway perv in Queens at the 61st Street and Roosevelt stop on March 3. His photo was released, but so far efforts have failed to lead to an arrest.

As camera-equipped cell phones become more popular, subway perverts may one day learn that pulling out your genitals on a train will get you busted. But let's hope such photos don't develop into a vengeance tool used to defame someone for other misdeeds under the context that they're a dreaded subway pervert.

Sure, it would be nice to live in a world free from watching sme dirty old man's genitals bounce along with the train. But it would also be nice if cell phones could limit muggings, littering, yelling children, people sprawled down on the seats sleeping and all of those people singing out loud to their favorite iTunes.