Woman handcuffed for eating candy at subway

By Candace Smith
The Associated Press

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Stephanie Willett, a government employee, found out the hard way recently. Finishing a candy bar on her way into a downtown Metro station, she was arrested, handcuffed and detained for three hours.

Willett, 45, said she was eating a PayDay bar on an escalator descending into a station July 16 when a transit policeman warned her to finish it before entering the station. Willett and police agree that she nodded and put the last bit into her mouth before throwing the wrapper into a trash can.

The Environmental Protection Agency scientist told radio station WTOP that the officer then followed her into the station.

"Don't you have some other crimes you have to take care of?" Willett said she asked the officer.

The transit police officer asked for Willett's identification, but Willett continued to walk. She said she then was frisked and handcuffed.

"If she had stopped eating, it would have been the end of it and if she had just stopped for the issuance of a citation, she never would have been locked up," Transit Police Chief Polly Hanson said yesterday.

Metrorail has been criticized in the past for heavy-handed enforcement of the eating ban. A police officer handcuffed a 12-year-old girl in 2000 for eating a French fry on a platform. Another officer ticketed a wheelchair-bound cerebral-palsy patient in 2002 for cursing when he was unable to find a working elevator to leave a station. Unflattering publicity led police to void the ticket.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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