The head of a San Francisco Bay Area commuter train system apologized to a black rider who was detained and cited by police for eating a breakfast sandwich on a train platform after an outcry from people who assailed enforcement of a no-food rule as racist.
More than two dozen people staged an "eat-in" at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station over the weekend and others continue to protest the Nov. 4 encounter, which ended with a 31-year-old man, who was headed to work, in handcuffs and unable to leave until he had told BART police his name.
BART officials said Monday that an independent auditor is investigating. Eating is not allowed in paid portions of stations to maintain cleanliness, but it shouldn't be used to prevent people from getting to work on time, they said.
"We have to read each situation and allow people to get where they are going on time and safely," said Bob Powers, BART's general manager. "I'm disappointed how the situation unfolded."
A 15-minute video of the encounter between an unidentified BART police officer and Steve Foster of Concord is spreading on social media, drawing angry rebukes from people who say the police reaction was ridiculous and racist.
The video, taken by Foster's girlfriend, shows the officer holding on to Foster's blue Mickey Mouse backpack and telling Foster he's not free to go until he identifies himself. He tells Foster he is resisting arrest.
"You have no right to be touching my (bag)," Foster says.
"You have no right to eat a sandwich on BART," the officer says.
The conflict at the station in the East Bay city of Pleasant Hill goes on for about eight minutes until backup officers arrive and handcuff Foster. They lead him away as morning commuters look on.
BART officials said the officer was passing by on another call when he asked Foster not to eat. When the officer walked by again and saw Foster still eating, he went to issue a citation.
Foster said Monday that he knew eating was not allowed on trains but did not realize it was banned on platforms. People often drink and eat on platforms and even inside the trains.
When the officer said he couldn't eat on BART, Foster assumed it was a warning not to get on the train with food and hurried to finish the breakfast sandwich his girlfriend had prepared.
"I picked up my bag and was getting in line, and he just grabbed my bag and said, 'You're not going anywhere, you're going to jail,'" Foster said.
Foster said he felt singled out because of his race and plans to challenge the police citation. It calls for him to pay a $250 fine or do 48 hours of community service.
The video clip was made public Friday.
The transit system carries about 400,000 people daily, linking San Francisco to the East Bay. It was made famous in "Fruitvale Station," a 2013 film about the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old African American man, by BART police on New Year's Day 2009.
BART board director Janice Li, who helped lead the weekend protest, said on Twitter that enforcement is a matter of priorities and not all laws are enforced.
"For me, there are WAY bigger issues at BART than enforcing no drinking/eating," she wrote.
Another protest is planned for the weekend, called "Eat a McMuffin on BART: They Can't Stop Us All."
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian court on Friday ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.
Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that Agriculture Minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77 million), a statement said.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 unlawfully obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85 million) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47 million).
Ukraine is trying to root out corruption that has long dogged the country. A dragnet over the past two years has seen Ukraine’s defense minister, top prosecutor, intelligence chief and other senior officials lose their jobs.
That has caused embarrassment and unease as Ukraine receives tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to help fight Russia’s army, and the European Union and NATO have demanded widespread anti-graft measures before Kyiv can realize its ambition of joining the blocs.
In Ukraine's capital, doctors and ambulance crews evacuated patients from a children’s hospital on Friday after a video circulated online saying Russia planned to attack it.
Parents hefting bags of clothes, toys and food carried toddlers and led young children from the Kyiv City Children’s Hospital No. 1 on the outskirts of the city. Medics helped them into a fleet of waiting ambulances to be transported to other facilities.
In the video, a security official from Russian ally Belarus alleged that military personnel were based in the hospital. Kyiv city authorities said that the claim was “a lie and provocation.”
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that civic authorities were awaiting an assessment from security services before deciding when it was safe to reopen the hospital.
“We cannot risk the lives of our children,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold online talks Friday with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which has been the key international organization coordinating the delivery of weapons and other aid to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said late Thursday that the meeting would discuss how to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield. The Kremlin’s forces have gained an edge over Kyiv’s army in recent months as Ukraine grappled with a shortage of ammunition and troops.
Russia, despite sustaining high losses, has been taking control of small settlements as part of its effort to drive deeper into eastern Ukraine after capturing the city of Avdiivka in February, the U.K. defense ministry said Friday.
It’s been slow going for the Kremlin’s troops in eastern Ukraine and is likely to stay that way, according to the Institute for the Study of War. However, the key hilltop town of Chasiv Yar is vulnerable to the Russian onslaught, which is using glide bombs — powerful Soviet-era weapons that were originally unguided but have been retrofitted with a navigational targeting system — that obliterate targets.
“Russian forces do pose a credible threat of seizing Chasiv Yar, although they may not be able to do so rapidly,” the Washington-based think tank said late Thursday.
It added that Russian commanders are likely seeking to advance as much as possible before the arrival in the coming weeks and months of new U.S. military aid, which was held up for six months by political differences in Congress.
While that U.S. help wasn’t forthcoming, Ukraine’s European partners didn’t pick up the slack, according to German’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which tracks Ukraine support.
“The European aid in recent months is nowhere near enough to fill the gap left by the lack of U.S. assistance, particularly in the area of ammunition and artillery shells,” it said in a report Thursday.
Ukraine is making a broad effort to take back the initiative in the war after more than two years of fighting. It plans to manufacture more of its own weapons in the future, and is clamping down on young people avoiding conscription, though it will take time to process and train any new recruits.
Jill Lawless contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Ukrainian young acting student Gleb Batonskiy plays piano in a public park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
