(The following article by Cara Buckley was posted on the New York Times website on November 11.)
NEW YORK — For years, Darius McCollum’s obsession with New York’s transit system has landed him in trouble. He has been arrested nearly two dozen times for offenses like impersonating transit workers, taking a subway train and buses for joyrides and trying to steal a locomotive.
Now, Mr. McCollum, who has spent about a third of his 41 years behind bars for transit-related crimes, is back on familiar charges.
Mr. McCollum was charged yesterday with criminal impersonation, one day after the police arrested him at Macombs Place and 150th Street in Manhattan on allegations that he broke parole and unlawfully had transit paraphernalia.
Mr. McCollum, whose transit-system rap sheet began more than a quarter-century ago, had a Metropolitan Transportation Authority-style badge, a construction hat and train conductor manuals, which violated his parole terms, a police official said.
Mr. McCollum had been living with his parents in Winston-Salem, N.C., after being conditionally released from the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in June, where he served time for burglary and forgery, according to Scott Steinhardt, a spokesman for the division of parole.
In August, the New York police were contacted by a public safety equipment company saying a man was trying to buy a transit-type badge, an official said. As part of an effort to rout out would-be terrorists, the police have been urging companies to report suspicious purchases. When they discovered that the prospective buyer was Mr. McCollum, they arranged to have his parole stipulations amended to prohibit him from buying transit paraphernalia.
On Tuesday, Mr. McCollum told his parole officer that he was fed up with North Carolina, and then disappeared, violating his parole, a police official said. With the authorities suspecting he would return to New York, the transit police in the Northeast were told to be on the lookout for an imposter.
Parole officers contacted Mr. McCollum on his cellphone Thursday, Mr. Steinhardt said, and persuaded him to turn himself in. He was arrested without incident later that day, Mr. Steinhardt said.
Mr. McCollum appeared in a Manhattan Criminal Court yesterday. Amir Vonsover, an assistant district attorney, said Mr. McCollum admitted that he found the allure of trains irresistible. Mr. Vonsover said Mr. McCollum had told his parole officer he was aware of his parole terms, but had added, “That didn’t remove the desire I had to be in a train yard or train.”
Wearing a black sweatshirt and blue pants, Mr. McCollum stood silently during the proceedings, his face registering little emotion. Bail was set at $2,500.
Mr. McCollum’s fixation with the transit system first got him in trouble at 15, when he was arrested after driving the E train to the World Trade Center from Herald Square. Over the years, his list of offenses grew to include slipping into subway control towers, tripping emergency brakes, as well as impersonating workers. In June 2004 he was arrested for trying to take a Long Island Rail Road M-7 locomotive and train from a railyard in Queens.
Some of Mr. McCollum’s supporters say the legal system has failed him because they believe he suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism that is typically reflected in obsessive behavior. His peculiarity also inspired a play, called “Boy Steals Train.”