Contact Staff
It was supposed to be a leisurely trip home for Lillian Reid and her daughter as they made their way home to LaSalle from church in Westmount on the evening of Saturday, April 2.
That’s until they crossed paths with two over-zealous metro officers at the Lionel Groulx station, an incident that left the two women troubled by the callousness of the officers and a $221 ticket.
Mrs. Reid, who is 67-years-old, said the officers alleged that she held the doors of the metro open and prevented it from moving in contravention of the regulations of the STM.
What actually happened, she told the CONTACT, is that as she and her daughter were hurrying with other passengers to catch the train on the Angrignon line, her two big handbags became wedged between the doors.
Her only concern was trying to dislodge them, so she was very surprised when the two officers came on the train and confronted her daughter who, because of impairment wasn’t fully capable of communicating with them.
“I was sitting and my daughter was standing nearby, so I tried to find out what they were talking to her about. That’s when they asked me to step out of the train and told me that I stopped the door from closing,” she says. “I tried to explain to them what really happened, but they wouldn’t listen and were very rude to me.”
Mrs. Reid said what was most troubling about the incident was the insensitivity of the officers who wouldn’t recognize her daughter’s impairment and inability to travel on her own.
Can you imagine how concerned I was when they took me off the train and she was left to make her way to Angrignon on her own? But they didn’t really care. They told me to get ‘transport adapté for her.
Mrs. Reid says she plans to contest the ticket.
