‘It matters to me’: Video shows Good Samaritan take gun from robber on Blue Line train
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A Chicago rider decided he wasn’t letting a robbery happen on his watch.
Hours before tens of thousands of runners lined up for the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, October 13, 2019, a very different kind of endurance test played out a few miles away on a CTA Blue Line train. Cellphone video capturing the confrontation spread fast, and it’s easy to see why — a passenger took a loaded gun away from an armed robber with his bare hands and then refused to let him go.
- Jean-Paul LaPierre, a 54-year-old warehouse manager and marathon runner visiting Chicago from Massachusetts, disarmed the suspect after watching him move through the train car targeting riders at gunpoint.
- Police say the suspect had approached a 25-year-old male rider to rob him before LaPierre intervened.
- The suspect, identified as 30-year-old Tremaine Anderson, was charged with one felony count of robbery with a firearm and had a history of prior arrests, according to police.
The Confrontation on the Train
According to witnesses, the gunman was working his way down the car, singling out riders one by one, when LaPierre made his move. Video shared widely by WGN News, captured by a fellow passenger, shows LaPierre cornering the man against the wall of the train and wrestling the firearm out of his grip before pinning him down. It’s the kind of split-second decision most people never have to make, and LaPierre didn’t hesitate.
Once he had the suspect controlled, LaPierre didn’t loosen his grip, even as the man pleaded to be let go. The footage — the same clip that circulated on Reddit’s Chicago community and elsewhere online — shows a physical standoff that lasted long enough for other riders to alert authorities and for officers to reach the car.
‘I’m Not Letting You Go’
What turned the video into a viral moment wasn’t just the takedown — it was what LaPierre said while holding the suspect down. As the man tried to talk his way free, LaPierre told him flatly that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“You’re not going anywhere… I’m not letting you go.”
When the suspect kept protesting, LaPierre answered with the four words that gave the story its headline: “It matters to me.” That line, delivered while restraining an armed man on a moving train car, is what made the clip stick with viewers well beyond Chicago.
The Charges Against Tremaine Anderson
Chicago police identified the suspect as 30-year-old Tremaine Anderson, who officers say has a record of prior arrests. He was charged with one felony count of robbery with a firearm following the incident. The 25-year-old rider Anderson allegedly targeted first was not injured, and no shots were fired during the encounter — a detail that matters given how quickly the confrontation escalated once LaPierre stepped in.
The episode is a reminder of how CTA riders and law enforcement continue to navigate isolated incidents of robbery aboard trains, even as the system carries hundreds of thousands of passengers daily. Stories like this one tend to travel fast online precisely because they run against type — for similar viral crime footage that made the rounds, see the dashcam footage of a cash van crew fending off armed robbers, another case where bystander video ended up telling the whole story.
Factors Driving Video Resonance
Part of what makes the footage compelling is timing: LaPierre was in town to run the Chicago Marathon, one of the world’s six major marathons, when he found himself in an entirely different kind of race against a stranger’s next move. The clip first gained traction in local Chicago threads, including a widely shared post in the Chicago subreddit, before television outlets picked it up and it spread nationally.
LaPierre’s calm under pressure — cornering the gunman, taking the weapon, and holding him until police arrived — is the kind of decisive action that’s rare to catch on camera in real time. It’s why “It matters to me” became the phrase attached to the story instead of just “CTA robbery suspect charged.”
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