A Black screenwriter is blaming an “old white lady” for getting him kicked off a train … he says he was racially profiled, but cops in New York say he refused to take his feet off a seat.
Alex O’Keefe, who writes for the FX hit “The Bear,” posted video of himself being confronted by MTA police officers while on a train from NYC to Connecticut … and he says a “Karen” complained and told him “to correct how I was sitting.”
The video shows cops slapping handcuffs on Alex and hauling him off the train. He’s being told to stop resisting and he asks officers if he’s being arrested. Alex turns the camera on an elderly white woman in a face covering, who he says pointed at him when she got on board.
Alex claims he was arrested but the MTA Police Department says he was NOT busted … and was only handcuffed and removed from the train and issued a summons for disorderly conduct.
MTAPD tells TMZ … officers responded last Thursday morning to a report of a disorderly passenger on a train from Grand Central Terminal to Connecticut. Police say a conductor reported a passenger occupying two seats who had refused to remove his feet from one of the seats.
Cops say surveillance video from the train shows a man with both legs stretched across an adjacent seat. They say when they boarded the train, the man refused their direction to exit. Police say he delayed service for the entire train for 6 minutes and was handcuffed and removed from the train … and cops say he was allowed to board the next train.
Alex says the “old white woman” complained about him to the conductor, who he says called police and stopped the train. He says the woman’s friend told him, “You’re not the minority anymore” as they waited for police to arrive.
The Hollywood writer also claims cops yanked him from the train without even talking to “the Karen who reported the one Black person on the train.” Cops do not mention the woman in their statement.
Bottom line from Alex … “This country is growing more psycho by the day.”
