An award-winning screenwriter behind the hit drama series The Bear claimed he was arrested after an “old white lady” complained about how he was sitting.
Alex O’Keefe said he was handcuffed and arrested while on a Metro-North train to Connecticut Thursday after a “Karen” pointed at him and told him to correct his sitting posture. O’Keefe said he refused, prompting the woman to complain to the conductor, who called authorities.
“While waiting for the police to arrive, the old Karen’s friend said ‘You’re not the minority anymore,’” O’Keefe, who is Black, wrote on Instagram.
According to the writer, the police asked him to leave the train, but O’Keefe refused.
“They pulled me off the train and arrested me without even talking to the Karen who reported the one Black person on the train,” he wrote, claiming the officers accused him of “disturbing the peace.”
“Only black folks stayed nearby and recorded the arrest,” he continued. “When I demanded a lawyer and reminded them they didn’t even take a statement from the woman who complained they eventually released me.”
“This country is growing more psycho by the day. What will you do about it?”
The incident has since gone viral on social media, sparking backlash from users calling the incident an act of racism.
“@mta how will you ensure Black riders are safe from racism on your trains????” wrote one user who commented on O’Keefe’s post.
@MTA @MetroNorth @MTAPD I hope that you all have an apology for this incident and to Alex O Keefe! He did commit any crime and didn’t do anything. Suspend these officers and charge the old lady with racial profiling. https://t.co/AiOUlDVSFn
— Derrick Richard (@Derrick_NYC) September 22, 2025
Another user on X called on authorities to apologize for the incident and suspend the officers who arrested O’Keefe.
“Suspend the officers and charge the old lady with racial profiling,” read the post.
Others encouraged the writer to lawyer up and sue the MTA for the arrest.
“Sue the train company and police for violating your rights,” wrote one user on Instagram. “Sounds like the MTA and PD just bought you a house,” wrote another netizen.
However, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Police Department (MTAPD) told The Daily Beast that no arrest had been made. Police said that officers had responded to a report of a “disorderly passenger” at Fordham Metro-North station in the Bronx.
“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 of the seats.”
Police said security footage from body-worn cameras and on-board security camera video “revealed that a 31 year-old male was observed with both legs stretched across an adjacent seat.”
The officers told O’Keefe to depart the train onto the platform, where he would be able to board a following train. But when he refused to exit and “delayed service for several hundred other riders for six minutes,” he was handcuffed and removed from the train.
O’Keefe was issued a summons for disorderly conduct but was allowed to board the next train to complete his trip, police said.
The Daily Beast has reached out to O’Keefe for comment.
O’Keefe worked on the first season of The Bear, which won him a Writers Guild of America Award for in 2023.
Besides the FX show, the writer is also a familiar face in the political sphere, having written speeches for prominent figures such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
The post ‘The Bear’ Writer: I Was Cuffed on Train After ‘Old White Lady’ Complained About My Posture appeared first on The Daily Beast.
