Accused of Fare Evasion
I am an inosent victim of a broken metro system.
I was recently accused of fare evasion at the Clarendon metro station but I absolutely did not evade the fare. I have verbal confirmation (from a metro official) that I swiped my metro smartrip card, but that it did not read it. The gate opened, I went through, and as soon as I knew it, a police officer was writing me up for fare evasion. He would not listen to me when I said I swiped my card, wrote me the citation, and told me that i was not allowed to ride the metro. I work for the Federal Government and ride the metro to work every day so I had approximately $240 on my card at the time. I now have to appear in court for a crime I did not commit.
I am currently requesting my transaction record in writing but it takes 20 WORKING DAYS for metro to process!! My court date is in two weeks, so now I wont have this written proof as evidence that i did not evade the fare.
This is absoletly absurd. I am not a "fare jumper" as some call it. I ride the metro loyally every single day, and this is how I am treated...
What do you have to say for yourself, knowing that innocent people now have criminal records because when they honestly attempted to pay, it did not "register"?
Anything that can be done to speed up my processing of my request for transaction record would be greatly appreciated. How could it possibly take 4 weeks to process??
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I'd show up in court and ask for an outright dismissal. It seems to me that Metro's processing of requests takes so long to intentionally put people like you in a bind. This should be akin to being denied the right to confront your accuser.
May I ask why you cooperated with the Metro transit officer in the first place? Any time anyone-- whether or not they're in uniform-- would ask me for ID (which is the first thing they should have done), my first action is to ask them why they need it. In this case, had the officer informed you of why, you probably could have better defended yourself right then and there.
By the way, any time you have an interaction with a Metro transit officer in this sense, be sure to demand to have the station supervisor and his supervisor in your presence before signing anything (like a ticket, etc). This may not change what's going to happen, but at least you're able to tie up 2 other people and waste their time in the process.