Metro Police are reviewing the use of force during a transit officers arrest of a young woman for bringing a lollipop and bag of chips into the Columbia Heights Metro Station on Tuesday evening.

Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said today that he has seen and has “a concern” about the video posted this week depicting the incident. “I have asked for a review,” Wiedefeld said, according to Faiz Siddiqui, a transit reporter for The Washington Post.

Metro confirms that the transit police initiated a use of force investigation yesterday and does so “whenever there is a public concern raised,” says spokesperson Morgan Dye. “In addition, Metro GM Wiedefeld specifically asked MTPD Chief Pavlik to initiate such a review in this case.”

The incident occurred on Tuesday around 6:35 p.m. after the young woman walked through the station’s gates with a bag of chips and a lollipop, which is not depicted on the video posted by April Goggans of Black Lives Matter DC on YouTube. Metro confirms that an officer told the girl to put her bag of chips away while she was on the paid side of the fare gates, and said she responded with “a defiant ‘No!”

When the video begins, there are three officers who instruct the handcuffed teen to sit down. When she refuses, an officer grabs her arm and kicks her leg, which knocks her to the ground. You can hear a bystander exclaim, “Oh my God!” The officer proceeds to nudge her shoulder and the girl screams “Don’t touch me!” She requests the officers loosen the handcuffs as one searches her bag.

Officers arrested the teen for unlawful entry and took her to MPD’s 5th District station, according to Metro. “Prosecutors opted not to pursue charges,” says Dye of Metro.

Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau also called for an investigation into the incident today. She wrote in a letter to Wiedefeld that the video “indicates an excessive use of force for a violation of consuming food at a metro station … I am extremely concerned that WMATA police officers took the measures they did in detaining this young woman.”

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