Subway rider arrested for eating candy: Allegedly ignoring officer leads to three-hour detention
It's good to know that our safety is in good hands, isn't it? But for the actions of one quick-thinking officer, Stephanie Willett would have been eating a candy bar on the subway. Before you know it, EVERYONE would be eating on the subway, and then chaos would rule.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A government scientist finishing a candy bar on her way into a subway station where eating is prohibited was arrested, handcuffed and detained for three hours by transit police.
Stephanie Willett said she was eating a PayDay bar on an escalator descending into a station July 16 when an officer warned her to finish it before entering the station. Both Willett and police agree that she nodded and put the last bit into her mouth before throwing the wrapper into a trash can.
Willett, a 45-year-old Environmental Protection Agency scientist, told radio station WTOP that the officer then followed her into the station, one of several in downtown Washington....
The transit police officer asked for Willett's identification, but Willett kept walking. She said she was then frisked and handcuffed.
"If she had stopped eating, it would have been the end of it and if she had just stopped for the issuance of a citation, she never would have been locked up," Transit Police Chief Polly Hanson said Thursday.
Metrorail has been criticized in the past for heavy-handed enforcement of the eating ban. In 2000, a police officer handcuffed a 12-year-old girl for eating a French fry on a subway platform.
In 2002, one of their officers ticketed a wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy patient for cursing when he was unable to find a working elevator to leave a station. Unflattering publicity eventually led the police to void the ticket.
It's because of dedicated public servants like this that Washingtonians don't have to suffer through the anarchy that would surely ensue if everyone just ate whatever they wanted on the subway.
Metrorail can ride in safety and securing, knowing that at least one officer passed the agency's Clueless Jackass test. (And, yes, if I knew the officer's name, he would be getting a richly deserved DUMB@$$ AWARD....)
Of course, if a murder or a robbery takes place, I'd be afraid. Very afraid.
