(CNSNews.com) – A civil liberties group accuses the Washington,
D.C., area transit authority of violating the constitutional rights of a 12-year-old
girl, who was arrested for eating French fries inside a Metro station more than
two years ago. The Rutherford Institute called it "another case of zero
tolerance run amok." Rutherford attorneys are asking a federal court to
declare the transit authority’s policy unconstitutional. In October 2000, 12-year-old
Ansche Hedgepeth was arrested when she ate a French fry inside a Metro train
station. According to a Rutherford press release, although the girl cooperated
with a police officer’s order to put down her fries and remove her backpack,
she was handcuffed, frisked and told to remove her shoestrings. At the police
station, she was interrogated, booked, fingerprinted and detained for two hours
until police released her into her mother’s custody, Rutherford attorneys said.
Adults caught eating in Metro stations are generally ticketed, not arrested;
and Rutherford attorneys say the different treatment of juveniles and adults
amounts to a discriminatory policy. Although the transit authority claims to
have revised its policy regarding juveniles, the Rutherford Institute said it
is "concerned that the zero-tolerance crackdown could be revived at any
time." [Full
Story]
I wonder if this was a UN enforced no fry zone?
1 comment
Those transit cops are often mocked by the regular ones. I think they knew an easy bust when they saw one.