BART rider filmed waving chainsaws around train cars

OAKLAND - A man who was caught on camera waving a couple of chainsaws around a BART train car Monday afternoon has been arrested.

Police arrested Patrick Bingman, a 47-year-old San Francisco resident, around 4:30 p.m. as he was exiting the train at the Lake Merritt station. Bingman, who had several outstanding arrest warrants, was booked into Alameda County jail for making criminal threats.

Tweeted by @jalina_ks, a video of the incident begins with Bingman handling a red chainsaw, then unpacking a green chainsaw. Early on, he says something that sounds like “cut your frickin' head off.” He later remarks, “ooh, yeah, it's electric” while holding the green chainsaw.

Neither power tool was switched on during the video, which had been viewed more than 6,000 times as of midnight Monday.

“This (expletive) ain't funny @SFBART,” @jalina_ks said. “Y'all have to do better. What the (expletive).”

“We've never seen anything like this before,” BART said in a reply. “Best thing to do is to snap a pic and send it to dispatch via BART Watch App. You can also go to another car and alert the train operator using the intercom. What train car are you on?

The author of the tweet said the episode occurred on a train headed from Fremont to Richmond. She questioned the response time of police.

“Y'all didn't do anything until he go off,” she told BART in a follow-up tweet. “Why did y'all wait!?”

BART replied that it “acted within minutes.”

“Police received multiple calls and officers quickly positioned themselves to board the train at Lake Merritt when the man actually got off,” BART said. “There was no waiting to respond.”

As concerning as the episode was to @jalina_ks, other passengers aboard the train did not appear to be outwardly perturbed by the sight of a man waving around a couple of chainsaws.

“We want to thank our riders for quickly reporting the unusual incident and our officers who quickly responded,” a BART spokeswoman said in an email to this news organization.