'The Bear' writer arrested and thrown off train 'after white woman complained about how he was sitting'
The writer said he was arrested after a white woman 'complained about the way he was sitting'.
Alex O’Keefe, the award-winning screenwriter who worked on popular drama The Bear was arrested on a train after a white woman allegedly complained about the way he was sitting.
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The acclaimed writer, who is black, shared a post on instagram showing him being taken away by an officer on the train.
Another video shows him being interrogated by police while in handcuffs after being led off the train.
The writer claimed he was ‘arrested, pulled off, handcuffed and detained’ after a white woman complained about the way he was sitting.
“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,” he wrote.
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“The conductor called the police and stopped the train. While waiting for the police to arrive, the old Karen’s friend said ‘You’re not the minority anymore.’
“The police told me to leave the train, I refused and asked what I was doing illegally. 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.”
A 'karen' is a term that gained prominence online in the early 2020s to describe a woman, often white, who is demanding, entitled and sometimes racist.
It became a well-known slang term after several incidents of white people calling the police on people of colour, usually in the US and often for unclear or seemingly arbitrary reasons, went viral.
In the video of him being confronted by officers, O’Keefe can be heard saying "You're gonna 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."
The video pans and O’Keefe can be seen pointing at an elderly white woman in a face mask.
"You call the police to arrest the one Black dude on the train," he can be heard saying, before adding, "I haven't done anything illegal."
The writer, who previously worked as a speechwriter for Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, said he was detained and interrogated by police on the station platform.
“Only black folks stayed nearby and recorded the arrest,” he wrote.
“When I demanded a lawyer and reminded them they didn’t even take a statement from the woman who complained, they eventually released me.
“This country is growing more psycho by the day. What will you do about it?A separate video about the incident was shared by a content creator on TikTok, where is has garnered more than 1.3 million views at the time of writing.
LBC has approached both Alex O’Keefe and the MTA for a comment.