Cuffed for eating a candy bar

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June 19, 2013, 11:12:07 am

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040729/ap_on_fe_st/candy_bar_arrest_1

A rich chocolaty shadow ad opportunity in the center of big government. Maybe we should try to run it in the Times when they run our article?? Timing would be tight, but it's a thought...

V-

Varrin,

Great thought. This is not the first time the Metro police have freaked out over a bite of food--last time it was a 12-year old and a single french fry.

I'll try to think of a way to capitalize on their stupidity. Wink

Quote

Willett, a 45-year-old Environmental Protection Agency scientist...

No excuse, she should know the environmental repercussions if everyone were allowed to eat candy bars just anywhere they felt like. Tsk, tsk

Here's the whole link

The appropriate thing to have done would be to have spit the candy bar on him so she'd no longer be eating it.

A few things.

She's a government agent. she deserved what she got.

2ndly, was this a private subway system? Or a government owned/enforced monopoly? If it was a private subway system, certainly they have a right to make their own rules. Perhaps the officer (Unlikely, I know.) was just trying to protect the subway owners property rights?

I don't think we can touch this one. It's simply too messy. It's one of those gray areas that gets created when government interfears. She's a government agent. Who owns the Subway system? Etc.

I don't know how we'd spin this.

Tracy

How about we spin it like this= You do not fucking arrest people for eating a candy bar!

Metrorail is not private. It is owned and controlled by the states of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. It is funded by appropriations of the two states and the Federal government, as well as by user fees. The Metrorail's "rules" are laws. The transit police are a full-fledged multi-jurisdictional police force, not a private security agency.

About half the people who use Metrorail are government employees, so it's not surprising that the woman happened to be one. She'd have suffered the same fate regardless of who her employer was. Why would that be relevant?

I was thinking of siding with you, Tracy, but it appears they got the goods on this one.

The "spin" (and sadly it's not even a spin) is that all parties involved were government actors. Growing taxes and regulations make such events possible. I wonder when they'll have a law about having your laces untied (oops, don't want to give them any ideas).

The reason why this type of event is more likely to happen with government control of the situation, is lack of competition.

Disneyland might have a law against eating in certain areas but it's very unlikely (unless there's a new federal terrorist watch mandate Tongue

) that they would treat a customer so badly. Yes, a customer.

The lady likely pays for the service in both taxes and real fees to ride it, the taxes she can't stop paying and the police don't need to compete with any other enforcement agency, so her happiness or justice etc. don't have anything to do with whether she'll be expected to support the system. I think shows that when someone robs you with a gun, they rarely bother to be polite in the process.

If this had been a private security force and private subway system, they would have discouraged her from eating, and maybe detained her for a bit or written up a ticket (at worst I'd assume) because both the subway would lose her support and such an abusive security force would be dropped by the subway after customer complaints or lost customers.

The thing that really irritates me is that she alreadys does pay for the service (directly and indirectly), the general populace helped fund it, so they all do own it and yet because government managed to claim it as property it's treated as if it's owned by some third party tyrrant who won't even let you eat something while waiting. Bleh Tongue

Besides, no private security firm could afford to blow 3 hours of time on a Snickers bar offense, while ignoring possible real security issues. Only a seemingly infinite (though it's not infinite) supply of tax dollars provides such luxuries and we're supposed to let the same group of people teach our children and take care of our homeless and elderly.

Maybe it's just a rare incident ... like the other rare ones.

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