A police officer in Los Angeles is under investigation after video showed him physically removing a woman from a train car because she allegedly had her foot on an adjacent seat.
“I paid to be on this train, asshole!”
The officer then told her, “Grab your stuff,” while pulling her by the arm.
“If you’re pulling me out the train, I can’t get my stuff,” she responded.
The cop then dragged the girl, who later identified herself as Betheny Nava, onto the train platform and restrained her.
A voice off-camera can be heard saying, “Please, please stop doing this, officer. Please don’t do this.”
The officer asked Nava for ID, to which she replied that she didn’t have one because she was on her way to meet her mother at the DMV to get identification because she just turned 18.
After the cop indicated that he was placing Nava under arrest, another woman stood by, criticizing the officer for the “bullshit.” Other officers later showed up, and she too was arrested.
Having one’s foot on a train is against the Metro Customer Code of Conduct. A bystander said that while Nava’s foot was on a seat, she was not blocking anyone from sitting. Nava was reportedly released, but the other woman, identified as Selina Lechuga, was held on $20,000 bail.
Deputy Chief Bob Green told local KPCC radio:
All that gal had to do was comply and this would be a non-event, because that same thing goes on hundreds of times every day throughout our system with our officers trying to restore order, and people who ride that train are begging for order on the system.
Phil Washington, CEO of the LA Metro, said in a statement, “This incident is still under investigation, but I want to be clear: This is not the kind of policing I want on our system.”
[Image via screengrab]
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