LA Student's Arrest For Putting Feet On Subway Seat Stirs Outrage

LOS ANGELES, CA — As public outrage mounts over video showing a Los Angeles Police officer dragging a young woman off a Metro subway train and arresting her for putting her feet on a seat, police and metro officials issued dueling statements Wednesday attempting to quell the anger.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck cautioned against a rush to judgement while Metro CEO Phil Washington said he was "extremely disappointed" by the policing shown in the video. In the meantime, the Los Angeles Police Department is investigating the officer, a veteran of more than 20 years, for his use of force.

"Our riders deserve better," Washington said. "We want the Metro system to be a safe environment for everyone. I expect more from our law enforcement partners. This incident is still under investigation, but I want to be clear: This is not the kind of policing I want on our system."

The video, which was posted to Facebook by another passenger Monday, has been viewed millions of times. It shows the officer ordering the 18-year-old off the train and then dragging her off at the Westlake/MacArthur Park station when she refused to leave. Bystanders can be heard begging and shouting at the officer to leave her alone.

“I already told you what to do, and you disobeyed me. You’re getting off the train,” the officer can be heard at the start of the incident, which quickly escalates.

“No I am not,” the woman responds. As he lifts her by the arm, she shouts, “You are not allowed to touch me!"

The woman grabs a railing, resisting the officer’s efforts to drag her off the train and cursing at him. He then shoves her into a wall and handcuffs her.

Bystanders follow them off the train, shouting and pleading with the officer to desist.

“You think you can do this? Really?” one woman asks the officer.

“Yes I can,” he replies while cuffing the panicked teen.

“Officer, please, please. Please stop doing this. Officer please stop doing this,” a man can be heard on the video. “Over her foot? Over her foot, really?”

The officer ended up arresting the teen and another woman who allegedly spit on him during the scuffle.

Chief Beck vowed not to pre-judge his officer as the investigation into his use of force continues.

"What I would ask everybody is, let's all be civil in our interactions, you know?" Beck said on ABC7. "I'm not going to pre-judge this. Obviously there's things of concern in the video, but I will tell you this, the sergeant involved in this is a 20-plus-year veteran with almost no use-of-force history. And we owe him an unbiased investigation that is more than just watching a snippet of video and making a judgment.

"And I will also tell you that during this incident he was spit on -- not by that young lady but another," he said. "Let's all be civil. If an officer asks you to do something, please do it. And to my officers also, let's be reasonable about the force you use."

Last year, Metro shuffled its police contracts and initiated a public campaign to improve ridership by discouraging riders from such rude behavior as taking up extra space on crowded trains.

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Now L.A. County’s Metro trains are policed by the Metro security, LAPD, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and the Long Beach Police Department. The officers have been tasked with patrolling the trains to discourage unruly behaviors.

Officers have the power to boot passengers who violate the Metro code of conduct from the train, but officials don't expect to have to take it to such extremes, Metro officials said last year in announcing the campaign dubbed Operation: Better Ride.

"Metro's law enforcement and security personnel will engage passengers in a friendly manner to ensure compliance with Metro's passenger conduct rules," the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority said at the time.

City News Service contributed to this report. Photo by Carl Nenzen Loven on Unsplash