It’s no secret, just being Black is pretty much a crime — at least it seems that way when melanated folks get harassed for zero reason while doing absolutely normal things. The most recent example is one man who was HANDCUFFED for eating a sandwich on the train platform. San Francisco residents are just as bewildered as we are, it seems, as they staged an “eat in.”
From the NYDailyNews:
It was an “eat in.” More than 30 people came together at a train station in the San Francisco Bay Area on Saturday to protest the treatment of a black man who was handcuffed and cited by cops after they “caught” him devouring a sandwich on a platform. The controversial incident, which was recorded by a witness, took place on Nov. 4 at the Pleasant Hill Station. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is investigating. “I continually see police overstepping their power on BART,” Kelly Groth told the San Francisco Examiner as protesters ate sandwiches and snacks at the Embarcadero Station. “Now it’s time to put an end to it.”
The cop seemed to take things overboard from the very beginning, clutching the guy’s book bag an all…
The video shows BART cops confronting Bill Gluckman and gripping the man’s backpack as he ate a breakfast sandwich on the platform. “You singled me out out of all these people,” Gluckman can be heard saying. Cops told Gluckman that he was stopped for eating on a BART platform, which is against the law. Later, after Gluckman continues to argue, cops tell him he would be busted for resisting arrest. “You’re going to end up going to jail, my man,” an officer says.
And why it took more than 1 cop to handcuff the man over his sandwich-eating ways, we have no idea.
Gluckman would be handcuffed by a group of officers. “Four cops for eating a sandwich?,” Gluckman said multiple times.
According to the site, BART looked into the incident and cops maintained it was a lawful handcuffing on their end, as “the individual was refusing to provide his name which is needed for citation.”
See a clip up top and more reactions below.
https://twitter.com/tatyana_sf/status/1193181383318851584?s=20
https://twitter.com/Smooches415/status/1192867354843070464?s=20
