Alex O’Keefe, a former writer for “The Bear,” the award-winning hit show on FX, spoke out on social media after he was detained by police and forced to exit a train after he said a white passenger wanted him to correct the way he was sitting.
O’Keefe, who is Black, posted the confrontation with Metro Transit Authority police on his Instagram.
Alex O’Keefe attends the 2023 Writers Guild Awards West Coast Ceremony at Fairmont Century Plaza, March 5, 2023, in Los Angeles.
Amy Sussman/Getty Images
The incident occurred on Thursday, according to a statement from the MTA Police Department to ABC News.
Police responded to a complaint of a 31-year-old “disorderly passenger” on a train at Fordham Metro-North station in the Bronx when “a conductor reported a passenger occupying two seats had refused to remove his feet from one of the seats,” according to authorities.
“I was arrested on the @MTA train to Connecticut today, pulled off, handcuffed, and detained,” O’Keefe said in a statement on social media. “An old white woman got on the train and immediately pointed at me and told me to correct how I was sitting. I refused so she went to the conductor and complained. The conductor called the police and stopped the train.”
Authorities told ABC News in a statement that a passenger, presumed to be O’Keefe, defied officers’ orders to exit the train. When he didn’t exit, police handcuffed him and escorted him out. Officials added that he was not placed under arrest at any time.
In the video, officers can be seen grabbing O’Keefe’s wrist as they attempt to place handcuffs on him. The writer pointed at an elderly woman and can be heard saying, “You’re going to arrest the one Black dude on the train because this white woman said she didn’t like the way I was sitting on the train.”
Officers can be heard demanding for him to stop resisting while the video appears to show a struggle to handcuff O’Keefe. He also posted on social media still photos of the elderly woman and an elderly white man, along with a video that appears to be from a third party of O’Keefe in handcuffs outside of the train, saying, “They just saw the Black guy and they arrested me.”
The award-winning writer who wrote for season one of “The Bear” said that an alleged friend of the woman who reported him told O’Keefe, “You’re not the minority anymore.”
“The police told me to leave the train, I refused and asked what was I doing illegally,” he said in his social media post. “They said I was disturbing the peace by not leaving the train. They pulled me off the train and arrested me without even talking to the Karen who reported the one black person on the train.”
MTA police told ABC News in a statement that after officers responded to the complaint at approximately 10:25 a.m., authorities told the passenger to depart the train onto the platform, where he would be able to board a following train.
“When he continued to refuse to exit, delaying service for several hundred other riders for six minutes, the passenger involved was handcuffed and removed from the train, where he was issued a summons for disorderly conduct, a violation, without further incident at approximately 1048 hours, and allowed to board the next train to complete his trip.” MTA police told ABC News in a statement.
Authorities said there is body camera video of the incident, but “That footage is not available.”
According to the MTA rules of conduct stated on its website, riders are subject to a $50 fine for occupying more than one seat by lying down or placing their feet up. If a rider ignores a violation notice from an officer, they are subject to being ejected, the rules state.
“This country is growing more psycho by the day. What will you do about it?” O’Keefe said in a statement on his social media post.
FX had no comment when reached by ABC News.
ABC News’ Armando Garcia and Anastasia Williams contributed to this report.