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?"

  • RandomlyGeneratedName@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    I’m sick of the police getting involved and actually acting when no explicit law has been violated. If a law isn’t violated, they should never ever put their hands on a citizen in any way. Detaining someone without actually arresting them should result in immediate firing of the police. If you can’t press charges, you shouldn’t act.

    • GroundedGator@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Sounds like they created the violation in this case. They threatened arrest for disturbing the peace if he didn’t comply and remove himself from the train. They are always able to manufacturer reason for detainment and threatening arrest.

      • RandomlyGeneratedName@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        You watch the video? - They said to him stop resisting even though they hadn’t placed him under arrest. Cops abuse their power all the time. I am saying they have no right to handcuff you or even touch you or order you off a train unless you committed an actual crime that they can place you under arrest for. You shouldn’t be forced to leave a train like this if you haven’t broken any kind of standing law.

        • buttnugget@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          The police are now trained to say “stop resisting” for their body cameras, which provides the pretext for additional charges. They throw as many charges as they possibly can hoping one or two stick if it gets plead down.

          I haven’t watched the video but I totally agree that it’s inappropriate to order him off the train in this instance. They can conduct their criminal investigation right there. The fact that these incidents are allowed to get to the police is the frightening part; that people who reported him need to go to jail, and the conductor should be at a minimum investigated.

        • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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          4 hours ago

          they frame evidence all the time, either by making it up, or trying to use it as an excuse to escalate. i suspect the latter.

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      That’d require them to be educated about the law but it seems awfully convenient to keep them ignorant of it.

    • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      So cops shouldnt be called when drunks and racists on planes get start yelling and delaying flights?

      Like that Burger King guy? Cops just shouldn’t have been called? Do Americans just not understand egalitarianism any more? You’re all deranged.

      Everyone gets the same rules, transport companies can kick you off, or get the police to detain-you-off the plane/train.

      There’s literally thousands of videos of people being thrown of public transport, it happens EVERYDAY whenever anyone refuses to obey the rules.

      Fucken, Americans are mentally ill, I swear. This shit is obvious in the rest of the world.

      • Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        23 minutes ago

        You resorting to ad hominem insteading of sticking to the facts and the arguments paints you in bad faith.

        If you want upvotes next time, maybe don’t do that.

      • RandomlyGeneratedName@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Drunk and Disorderly conduct is a crime. I didn’t say cops can’t be called - I said unless they are arresting you to charge you with a crime they shouldn’t be able to detain you, remove you from a train, or claim you are resisting. This ensures they are only intervening when an actual crime was committed. It puts them in a position to have to defend their initial arrest in court and not just harass people and get away with it because they didn’t technically arrest them - which is the case here. Assuming from your statement you aren’t from America so you don’t know how much police harass people outside of actual arrests here. They will ask you to comply without an arrest to whatever unreasonable demand they make. Then, if you don’t comply with something unreasonable, they will claim you were resisting, and then charge you with resisting. It’s designed to create a charge where there was none to begin with. Police do that all the time over here, especially to minorities.

        • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Not what happened here though. He was taken off the train, released and told to get the next train.

          • RandomlyGeneratedName@lemmy.world
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            Also, the video shows them saying “stop resisting.” They were attempting to do just what I said, but a lot of people started recording, and this guy started saying how famous he was so the police thought better of it. Without the bystander cameras and the fame of the person involved it likely would’ve been handled much different.

          • RandomlyGeneratedName@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            What exactly was the reasoning for taking him off the train that justifies it? Because an old woman didn’t like the way he was sitting? That is the only justification listed anywhere. Is that the only standard necessary to remove this man from his paid for train ride, not to mention police harassing him? Why is his much greater discomfort less important than that ladies? Why does that random old lady get to dictate anything? Why does the train conductor have no responsibility to this other paid customer - he just stops the train due to this old ladies discomfort that has no legal backing? I just can’t see a justification for the way this situation was handled.

          • buttnugget@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            That’s what they’re saying. They’re saying that the police should need more than just the bare minimum investigation of a potential crime to remove you from transit. You’re saying that he was released as if the only two options were not taking him off the train and jailing him indefinitely.