The Bear writer says he was handcuffed on an MTA train after a seating complaint
Writer Alex O’Keefe says an old white woman’s seating complaint led to his removal; transit officials say he refused to exit and caused a six-minute service delay.
A writer for the Emmy-winning TV series The Bear says he was handcuffed and escorted off a Metro-North train bound for Connecticut after a passenger complained about how he was sitting, according to footage he posted online. Alex O’Keefe, 31, shared a video and accompanying posts recounting the incident, which he says occurred Thursday morning on a Grand Central Terminal-to-New Haven service in the New York region.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority confirmed officers responded to a report of a disorderly person on a New Haven-bound train at the Fordham station in The Bronx around 10:25 a.m. The train was en route from Grand Central Terminal to New Haven when a conductor reported a passenger occupying two seats had refused to remove his feet from one seat. Investigation, aided by body-worn cameras and onboard security video, showed a 31-year-old man with both legs stretched across an adjacent seat.
The transit agency said O’Keefe was ordered to exit the train but refused to comply with police instructions to leave, delaying service for several hundred riders for about six minutes. The agency noted that the passenger was not placed under arrest; instead, he was issued a court summons for disorderly conduct and later boarded the next available Connecticut-bound train at 10:48 a.m.
O’Keefe has said the incident carried racial overtones. In social posts, he claimed that an old white woman in a mask complained about how he was sitting and that he was singled out as the only Black passenger on the train. He said a bystander accompanying the complainant told him, you’re not the minority anymore, and later described the encounter as an arrest rather than a standard deboarding. He added that on the platform, police detained him and interrogated him, and that only Black riders remained nearby to record the moment. He concluded the episode with a line condemning the broader social climate.
The MTA’s account emphasizes the procedural aspect: officers responded after the conductor reported the seating issue, and the decision to remove the rider came after he refused to exit. The spokesman said the investigation, supported by body-worn cameras and video from onboard cameras, showed the man refused to depart. The agency stressed that the individual was not arrested and that the summons allows him to handle the matter in court.
O’Keefe’s public profile includes work on The Bear, for which he has been recognized by the Writers Guild, and his work writing speeches for prominent Democrats, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. He has posted video and commentary about the incident, which quickly circulated on TikTok and other platforms, prompting a broader conversation about transit-police practices and the treatment of riders on public transportation.