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[AlohaDawg]

Does this stuff really happen this much there? The last line of this article is gold. Must be a leading revenue activity over there...

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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.

"Don't you have some other crimes you have to take care of?" Willett said she told the officer.

Washington has been under heightened security because of the continuing threat of terrorism. And last week, police declared a citywide crime emergency over rising juvenile crime.

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.

Willett was the second person arrested this year for eating or drinking, Hanson said. In addition, police have issued 58 tickets and given more than 300 written warnings.

[slink]

Willett was the second person arrested this year for eating or drinking, Hanson said.

Wow.


Wow.


Um, wow...

Not that I don't like to be that fascist with the kids at work (work which I leave next week thank god), but that's kids and it's because it's fun.

[wombat]

Um, yeah, apparently this really happened.

This is only the fun stuff, but it's all part of the normal Metro system incompetence.  Like how they decided that from now on you could only use these special farecards to pay for parking at a station - and then they didn't have enough of the cards and said they were going to stop selling them.

I should say that one thing they do manage is that the system is very clean, and the no-eating rule has a lot to do with it.  But I've always thought that Metro was designed by a committee who went to NYC and took the subway for the first time and said, "My God!  This is so loud and dirty and it goes everywhere and runs all night and is incredibly useful!  We need to do exactly the opposite!"

[Carlos del Vaca]

Yeah, what Wombat said.  I love the Metro, but damn it could be run so much better.

Also, don't forget that they let the Redskins and the Maryland Stadium Authority purposely build a football stadium not next to a Metro station, so everyone would have to pay for parking.

[CortJstr]

4 years ago they arrested a girl taking the metro to school for eating a french fry. A court ruled it wasn't the best idea the officer had but that he was just following the law. They're complete fanatics about eating, drinking, and music w/o headphones in the stations and trains. I once saw staff argue with a rider whether smoking on the skyway over 66 was "in the station" or not. The passenger lost.

But hey, the purple line and Dulles connector should be open by 2056. You know, once they get the red line re-opened after the rain 2 days ago.

[wombat]

Rain, oh yeah that reminds me... and how they shut down the system when it snows hard which is exactly when you need to take the Metro instead of driving.

[side_show]

.Also, don't forget that they let the Redskins and the Maryland Stadium Authority purposely build a football stadium not next to a Metro station, so everyone would have to pay for parking.

Also, don't forget that they allow the team to keep it's insanly racist name.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/us_sport/3157402.stm

This team has always treated its name and trademarks with the utmost respect

Sad.

With the "utmost respect" I'd like to call the teams' owner Daniel "Racist Fucker" Snyder.  With the utmost respect.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Also, don't forget that they allow the team to keep it's insanly racist name.

I'd like to see a potato on their helmets.  Problem solved.

[CortJstr]

There was a case a while back where somebody was suing to say that one can't trademark a slur. If that worked the team would still get to keep the name but anybody could sell burgundy/gold merchandise that said "redskins" on it as long as they didn't use the logo.

I have noticed that you almost never hear the words to the fight song any more.

Random tidbit: You always hear about FedEx Field. But the stadium is still technically Jack Kent Cooke Stadium. Snyder just won't let people use that name.