It was a cool, clear October day in Washington, D.C., when the closing bell rang and twelve-year-old Ansche Hedgepeth ran out the door of Alice Deal Junior High School. She stopped at a fast-food restaurant for an order of hot French fries and then headed for home. Ansche took the escalator down into the Tenleytown/American University Metrorail station to catch her train. In the station, she ate a single French fry. Moments later, the junior high student was in handcuffs and headed for jail.
Ansche had no idea that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) had picked that Monday to kick-off a week of “zero tolerance” enforcement of “quality of life offenses.” They had ordered undercover officers to automatically punish even minor infractions.
D.C. Code § 35-251(b) makes it a violation to “consume food or drink” in a Metrorail facility. For a first offense, adults could be fined from $10 to $50. Only for a second offense can an adult be arrested. Minors, however, cannot be fined. Officers can either warn them, or arrest them, but the zero tolerance policy made arrest the only option.
An undercover officer saw Ansche eat the one fry and quickly placed her under arrest. The twelve-year-old girl was searched and her jacket, backpack, and shoelaces were confiscated. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and she was put into a paddy wagon and driven to the Juvenile Processing Center. Three hours after the arrest, Ansche was finally released into the custody of her mother.
In a decision reluctantly upholding Ansche’s arrest, the judge noted that she was totally compliant, never resisting, only crying throughout the process. She had never eaten in a Metrorail station before, nor had she ever been warned not to eat there. The judge mocked the harsh, zero tolerance enforcement of the “serious offense of eating a French fry on a subway platform.”