'The Bear' writer arrested on train after complaint from ...
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Alex O'Keefe shared a video on social media of him being arrested, with the clip quickly going viral.

In the caption of the Instagram post, he wrote, “An old white woman got on the train and immediately pointed at me and told me to correct how I was sitting. I refused, so she went to the conductor and complained. The conductor called the police and stopped the train,” he said.

O’Keefe also says in the caption that the friend of the woman who called the police had said to him, “You’re not the minority anymore.”

A separate video about the incident has been uploaded by the user, Nalae, on TikTok, where it has quickly gone viral, having been viewed over 160,000 times as of reporting.

They said I was disturbing the peace by not leaving the train. They pulled me off the train and arrested me without even talking to the Karen who reported the one black person on the train. On the platform, the police detained me and interrogated me. Only black folks stayed nearby and recorded the arrest. When I demanded a lawyer and reminded them they didn’t even take a statement from the woman who complained they eventually released me. This country is growing more psycho by the day. What will you do about it?"

  • theherk@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 days ago

    I’m trying to envision a scenario that would warrant the arrest and I just can’t. Maybe you can contrive one for us. Loud music or bare feet, and I’m all for it; to the gallows. But sitting wrong? What?

    • MangioneDontMiss@feddit.nl
      5·
      2 days ago

      all I’ve found so far:

      https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-bear-writer-handcuffed-train-after-allegedcomplaint-white/story?id=125829965

      Police responded to a complaint of a 31-year-old “disorderly passenger” on a train at Fordham Metro-North station in the Bronx when “a conductor reported a passenger occupying two seats had refused to remove his feet from one of the seats,” according to authorities.

      Authorities told ABC News in a statement that a passenger, presumed to be O’Keefe, defied officers’ orders to exit the train. When he didn’t exit, police handcuffed him and escorted him out. Officials added that he was not placed under arrest at any time.

      It sounds like he was being an asshole TBH. I can sorta understand why the police wanted him off the train. Not completely sure why they had to handcuff him. But I mean, we’ve seen footage of plenty of disorderly passengers being escorted off planes for being jerks. This doesn’t sound too dissimilar. That said, without seeing any actual evidence, who the hell knows.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
      31·
      2 days ago

      Presumably for not listening. We’ve all seen assholes on the train where we wish the conductor would intervene. Whether deserved or not, this time they did and if you get belligerent whebpn the conductor tells you to do something, they may call the police, who will escort you off the train. I’m not saying that’s what happened, since we don’t know. Maybe this was a clear case of sitting while black, but I’m not ready to follow the herd of lemmings off the cliff when the story has such an obvious gap