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?"

  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
    239·
    17 hours ago

    That the issue was how he was sitting, and that he refused to change that is not disputed by anyone in the story.

    He states it himself:

    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 MTA isn’t a country club, they deal with people of every race everyday. They also deal with people who refuse the rules everyday.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
      201·
      17 hours ago

      “Correct how I was sitting” could literally mean ANYTHING. Maybe she wanted him to sit up straight, maybe he was “manspreading”, it’s really impossible to know from the description here.

      If camera footage shows him taking up two seats or putting his feet up or something, fine, but stopping a train because someone “refuses to sit ‘properly’”? Seriously?

      • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
        317·
        16 hours ago

        Yeah, we can conclude from the MTA workers actions that it probably wasn’t a posture or slouching issue - and that it was probably something much more common… Like having your feet up on the seats.

        The MTA isn’t stopping a train because someone is slouching.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
          41·
          16 hours ago

          What I’m saying is, from this article, it’s really impossible to know. Could be a racist MTA worker, there’s no way to know with certainty from the reporting here.

          Maybe he was being argumentative? We don’t know, his statement was “I refused” but there are multiple ways to refuse a request ranging from “No, I don’t think I will” up to “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

          We can’t know from this reporting, unfortunately.

          TBH, I’d really LIKE to know! If it’s a racist MTA worker, go get him guys! If it’s an asshole rider abusing an innocent MTA worker, I’d like to know that too. Too bad we can’t know from this reporting.

    • GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      22·
      18 hours ago

      Show me where he violated your holy rules. I’ll wait. “The old bag said so” doesn’t count as a source, young man, so, it won’t be accepted as one.