Reply to Police Arrest Teenager with Food on Metro

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So much of our law enforcement system depends on how fixers and prosecutors' reasonable exercise of discretion.  Metro had rules re eating, etc.  seeing someone breach the rules (which allegedly happened here) provides cause for the detention/stop.  Was this a wise exercise of discretion?  Dunno.  But it is not t advisable to disobey lawful law enforcement orders.  She does not have to answer questions. [/quote]

The point about discretion may be true generally, but I don't think it's true when it comes to eating in the metro.  When officers see someone eating in the metro, they have the exact same response 100% of the time.  They ask the person to throw the food out, put it away, or leave the metro system.  It's not like when an officer decides if he's going to stop someone going 10 miles over the speed limit, ticket them or let them go with a warning.  I don't think the officers have any discretion to just ignore someone eating in metro.  (They may have discretion over how many times they'll ask the person to put it away before issuing a fine -- I've heard some officers won't ask -- they'll just issue the citation.  Here, it seems like if any discretion was exercised, it was in the girl's favor, as they asked her repeatedly to put it away or leave metro.)

It's also a little unclear to me whether the officers are allowed to issue a written citation to a minor (if she is a minor -- there have been conflicting reports).   I remember with the French fry case 15 years ago, the officers said they were in sort of a catch-22, as they weren't allowed to issue paper citations to minors (because they probably just throw them out), so they have to bring them in and contact their parents.

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