WP: Subway Rider Busted for Selling a Token

[Imagine My Surprise]

When I think of all the genuine wrong-doing, corruption and graft going on -- and how people like ** continue to walk free for their lies and murders -- and then read something like this, it makes me want to scream and pound my fists.

ATLANTA -- Transit police handcuffed and cited a man who sold a $1.75 subway token to another rider who was having trouble with a token vending machine. He vows to fight the citation in court.

Transit authority spokeswoman Jocelyn Baker said Friday that the officer "acted within the law" after he spotted Donald Pirone, 42, selling the token Nov. 30 inside the West End subway station

Instead of giving Pirone a warning, the officer decided to handcuff him and give him the misdemeanor citation under a 1992 state law that bars passengers from selling Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority tokens, she said.

"What you've got to keep in mind is that fare abuse is a chronic problem," Baker said. "It costs MARTA millions of dollars every year."

Baker acknowledged that Pirone sold the token at face value and did not make a profit. But the law is the law, she said.

"There are customer service phones for people who are having trouble getting tokens out of the machine," Baker said. "The fact is, our officer acted within the law."

As for the handcuffs, Baker said the officer felt they were necessary.

"Our officers do that for their own safety," Baker said.

There was no answer Friday at a phone listed to a Donald V. Pirone in Atlanta. Pirone told WSB Radio that he was just trying to help a fellow passenger out who was having trouble with a token machine. He said he will fight the citation but will have to ride MARTA to court because he doesn't have a car.

"I gave him a token and, I guess out of his generosity, he gave me the money for it," Pirone said. "But I didn't ask him for money."

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Generosity is illegal, I guess

handcuffing a guy who gives another a subway token while ignoring rapists, murders, etc. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[Imagine My Surprise]

2. You could not make this shit up if you tried

[Jackpine Radical]

9. You people don't get it. Generosity is destructive. It eats away

at the fabric of society. Where sould corporations be if people started giving things away? Capitalism is founded on mean-spiritedness. Progress only comes by marching across the dead bodies of society's failures.

[0007]

16. Common Courtesy is no longer a Federal Law.

[CornField]

3. Holy shit!

I could see myself doing this! Hell, I often do this type of thing. In the real world it's known as being polite and generous.

[Imagine My Surprise]

4. Evidently something has happened to the real world

[mindfulNJ]

5. Good Lord

The stupidity of this is mind boggling.

[Imagine My Surprise]

6. I'm so glad I wasn't just being overly sensitive. Thanks for confirming!

[deadmessengers]

7. Figures it's MARTA

MARTA is the most piss-poor excuse for a public transit system in the US - they've been completely kneecapped by the Repugnican county commissions that oversee the regional transportation board.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Don't you it's only a crime if the value of what's being sold is less

than $250,000? Above that, it's just business as usual. Ask Delay or Cunningham or Ney.

[dcfirefighter]

10. And yet cops still get more women than we do.

Of course, theirs are the psycho submissives. Ours are strippers.

Full disclosure: I've never dated a stripper. But I would.

[goondogger]

11. I agree w/DCFirefighter

. . . I'd date a stripper too.

:smoke:

[deadmessengers]

12. Trust me, you don't want to

I've dated a stripper, and known a few others. Every last one of them are psychos with HUGE daddy issues - it's to be expected - women with normal self-esteem don't take jobs like that.

[madinmaryland]

13. I did that a couple of times in NYC before they came

out with the metrocards.

:wtf: if you are scalping the tokens, thats one thing, but if there is no profit involved, then...

:wtf:

[thefool_wa]

15. I don't get it...

Why would a rider buy a $1.75 token from someone for MORE than the face value when you could just go to the token machine and get one for $1.75? It doesn't make sense, so why make it illegal.

Also, if a person has bought a token and sells it for LESS than face value, why should MARTA care. They got their full fare, the token can only be used once, and the person who bought it originally is taking a loss.

This sounds like another government attempt to generate revenue by making something stupid illegal and then doing exactly what was done here. Is there ANY way we can stop this kind of abuse!

They really are trying to build a prison for you and me to live in.

[Javaman]

14. Plain and simple, that officer is an asshole barney fife.

My appologies to Don Knotts.

[bammertheblue]

17. To me

this is like bumming a cigarette from someone and giving them a quarter in return. Is ATF going to show up? Who the hell cares?