PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA has shared with KYW Newsradio video of a scuffle earlier this month between a young woman and a SEPTA police officer after a dispute over whether the 19-year-old was trying to evade a fare. Her lawyer says it was excessive use of force while SEPTA says the officer did everything right.
In the video from Sept. 3 (which has no sound), the woman first gets into what looks like an animated discussion with someone in a ticket booth at the Snyder Avenue station on the Broad Street Line. As she tries to squeeze through the turnstile, she is stopped by an officer not once, but three times.
“He simply tried to talk her out of the system, explain to her that she has to pay a fare or direct her over to the fare kiosk if she wanted to talk to somebody,” said SEPTA Police Chief Chuck Lawson. “At first, [she] responded to that and left, but then came back a second time and immediately did it again, directly in front of him.”
Her lawyer Michael Walker says she was trying to get exact change for a fare before trying to pass a third time. “She finally got some direction in getting change. She gets the change. She actually purchases the ticket, she gets through the turnstile, and for whatever reason, the officer is still upset,” he said.
And that’s when the two get into a tussle, shoving back and forth before ending up on the ground, which was also captured on cell phone video, which Walker shared with KYW. Both were taken to the hospital and treated for minor injuries.
“She was verbally abusive, she disregarded the rule of law, and she presented a safety risk for our employees and our customers,” said Lawson. “She is going to go in cuffs for her safety until he issues a citation, and she did everything in her power to prevent that.”
But Walker says there was no reason for the officer to get physical.
“[It was] clearly excessive in my opinion … she’s a female and weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet and he pushed her several times, slammed her up against the wall and then later on slammed her to the ground,” he said.
“Enforcement never looks pretty,” said Lawson, “and it will always look ugly when you have an individual who is actively resisting every attempt to resolve this as peacefully as possible.”
Walker says the young woman is now in therapy.
He did provide KYW with a copy of a Septa quick trip ticket — for two dollars and fifty cents, dated the same day as the incident, at the same time at the Snyder stop. His client was not charged with resisting arrest or assault on police, but instead theft of services and disorderly conduct.
SEPTA says there is body camera footage which has audio, but they are unable to provide that video for what they say are legal reasons.