the return of the subway guy

I was just wondering what happened to him!

Darius McCollum made headlines in 1980 when, posing as a subway motorman, he took over a train and successfully piloted it for several trips, before taking a turn too quickly and getting nabbed. It turned out he was a 15-year-old, self-taught subway expert. The city was fascinated with him for a time, and many people urged the MTA to give him formal training and hire him.

Since that time, McCollum has periodically resurfaced in the news, and always for the same reason: getting arrested for impersonating an MTA employee so he can work on the subways.

Clyde Haberman, a very good local columnist, gives an update. It's a sad story:

By all accounts, he has shown himself to be quite skilled. Never has he hurt anyone. Indeed, people who know Mr. McCollum describe him with words like "affable," "gentle" and "guileless."

But his actions are crimes. Not even his defenders excuse what he does. And official tolerance of his misbehavior, if it ever existed, has hardly expanded in the fearful post-9/11 age.

Mr. McCollum, now 40, has been arrested 21 times, most recently last June when he tried to steal a locomotive from a railyard in Jamaica, Queens. In February he pleaded guilty, and last week a state judge in Queens sentenced him to prison for up to three years. Much of his adult life has been spent behind bars.

The question his supporters ask is whether locking him up again and again is the wisest way to deal with a man who clearly has an unusual fixation but has harmed no one.

Haberman cites the example of Frank Abagnale, made famous by the film "Catch Me if You Can,", a con artist who was hired by the FBI to solve the kinds of crimes he used to commit. Too bad the MTA can't be so creative.