Candy bar on the metro

[javasaurus]

The news has been spouting that a woman was detained for 3 hours for eating a candy bar on the metro. Sheesh! talk about bad reporting!

Reading WTOP's article about the incident, the woman was eating the candy bar while entering the station, and a metro cop told her to finish the bar before entering. She plopped it into her mouth and put the wrapper into a trash can. That would have been the end of it. But she felt the need to tell the cop to "go and take care of some real crime" -- WTH? No wonder she was detained. You don't mouth off to a cop who is doing their job, unless you're looking for trouble. Yet WTOP is making her out to be the victim here.

Comments

[faireraven.livejournal.com]

I think the way both sides treated it was asinine.

A) the woman should have had the good sense not to mouth off to a cop who was doing their job. She was practically begging them to try to stop her. She was in the wrong, period.

B) I think cuffing the woman and detaining her for three hours was above and beyond what the situation called for... A little judicious detaining onsite to give her a ticket and make her late for work might have sufficed. Frisking her (and under the bra as well) was WAY beyond what was required for someone being stupid enough to mouth off.

Increasing ticket fines or making her wait, even up to the three hours, might have been fine. But cuffing and frisking way crossed the line.

On the other hand, the woman was idiot enough to mouth off to a cop. Sheesh, I've seen enough Law and Order to know just how much the law can be manipulated to a cop's advantage if they want to put the perpatrator in a bad spot (yes, I know, it's fiction, but has at least some basis in real law). If you don't want the cops to "exact revenge" on you for being noncooperative, you don't do stupid shit like mouth off to them.

yeah

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

The Post story goes into a little more detail, but still only brushes past the mouthing off to the cop with the lightweight line, "Moments after making a remark to the officer, Willett said, she was searched, handcuffed and arrested for chewing the last bite of her candy bar after she passed through the fare gates." -- in other words, it really is written to paint the cop, AND the law itself, in a bad light.

If her comments (which probably won't come out unless there's a specific trial, which there probably won't be) were abusive or obscene, there's a little more balance to it, and it would repaint the situation as emotional escalation that got out of hand (on BOTH sides) rather than abuse of the law over a nitpick of negligable details.

Re: yeah

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Didn't hear about the search initially. But more recent details certainly paint the woman in a less favorable light. Apparently she was warned repeatedly about the food, and walked away when the cop tried to give her a ticket.

As for the searching, the police dept. indicated that it's standard procedure to search anyone taken into custody regardless of the offence.