On Nov. 4, a BART rider in the San Francisco, California area was handcuffed and cited for eating a breakfast sandwich on the station platform. The man’s girlfriend recorded a video of the incident which has since gone completely viral and even inspired a small protest. According to KTVU, the man in the video is named Steve Foster. The Facebook account which uploaded the video, however, is under Bill Gluckman. Some news outlets have reported the man’s name as Gluckman, and others have reported on Foster and Gluckman as two separate people.
Here’s how this incident reportedly went down. At around 8 AM that Monday, a BART police officer, whose nametag reads D. McCormick, went to the Pleasant Hill Bart train platform to look for a woman who was reportedly drunk. Unable to find her, the officer noticed a man eating his breakfast. And that’s where things escalated.
A key snippet of the conversation goes as follows.
"You are detained and you are not free to go," the officer says. "You're eating. It's against the law."
"So what?"
"You're going to jail," the officer replies.
"I'm not going to jail for eating a f—ing sandwich," the man says.
"No … For resisting arrest."
Eventually, as the officer continues to hold onto the man’s backpack, three additional officers appear. The officers handcuff the man and bring him to a private room. KRON 4 reports that the situation escalated because the man refused to show identification or give his name to the officer. The videos, first posted in full-length to Facebook, are clipped below on Twitter.
As reported by KPIX, there are code of conduct signs posted at every station entrance, noting that no eating or drinking is allowed once you go through the fare gate. But the general sentiment among riders is that it’s not a big deal and police should have, ahem, bigger fish to fry than a breakfast sandwich.
Susan Rasmussen, a BART passenger, said as much to KPIX, noting, “I’ve been taking BART for the last ten years and there are much more important things to worry about.”
Now, the viral videos have inspired a sit-in lunch protest inside a different BART station, where eating is also not allowed.
"My first political awakening was back at a lunch counter in the '60s, now we're back to 'eat-ins," John Reimann, one of 30 people who held an eat-in protest inside the Embarcardero BART station told ABC7 News.
BART is standing by the officer, in spite of public outcry. "No matter how you feel about eating on BART, the officer saw someone eating and asked him to stop, when he didn't, he was given a citation," BART spokesperson Alicia Trost stated in an email to SFGATE.
Once the man gave his name to the officer, he was cited and released. He faces 48 hours of community service and a $250 fine. He was not arrested.
"I think he really needs to know that he can't approach people the way he did or talk to people the way he did just because he has a badge," the man, identified as Foster by KTVU, told the station in reference to the officer who detained him. "I think I was singled out because I was black, to be honest."