For years, the media have worked hard to fan the flames of racial discord. They were the ones who perpetrated the "hands up, don't shoot" narrative surrounding the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown (Brown was shot after trying to take a police officer's gun). They continued up to and through 2020, and the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the shooting that injured Jacob Blake in Kenosha. Cities across the country erupted in riots that killed at least 25 people and caused over $1 billion in damage.
Throughout the riots, places like CNN insisted things were "mostly peaceful" as their reporter stood before a backdrop of flames.
And it seems they still haven't learned. Today, ABC News ran a story about Alex O'Keefe with a racially-charged post and headline:
Alex O'Keefe, a former writer for "The Bear," the award-winning hit show on FX, spoke out on social media after he was detained by police and forced to exit a train after he said a white passenger wanted him to correct the way he was sitting.https://t.co/Ax1Tn7WSyj
— ABC News (@ABC) September 23, 2025
No one will be shocked to learn ABC News is misleading readers once again, and they wait until the fourth paragraph of the story to reveal the truth (emphasis added):
Alex O'Keefe, a former writer for "The Bear," the award-winning hit show on FX, spoke out on social media after he was detained by police and forced to exit a train after he said a white passenger wanted him to correct the way he was sitting.
O'Keefe, who is Black, posted the confrontation with Metro Transit Authority police on his Instagram.
The incident occurred on Thursday, according to a statement from the MTA Police Department to ABC News.
Police responded to a complaint of a 31-year-old "disorderly passenger" on a train at Fordham Metro-North station in the Bronx when "a conductor reported a passenger occupying two seats had refused to remove his feet from one of the seats," according to authorities.
In a statement on social media, O'Keefe blamed racism for the incident, writing, "I was arrested on the @MTA train to Connecticut today, pulled off, handcuffed, and detained. An old white woman got on the train and immediately pointed at me and told me to correct how I was sitting. I refused so she went to the conductor and complained. The conductor called the police and stopped the train."
O'Keefe's statement continued, "The police told me to leave the train, I refused and asked what was I doing illegally. They said I was disturbing the peace by not leaving the train. 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 added, "This country is growing more psycho by the day. What will you do about it?"
It's not until the fourteenth paragraph that ABC News reports O'Keefe was violating MTA rules:
According to the MTA rules of conduct stated on its website, riders are subject to a $50 fine for occupying more than one seat by lying down or placing their feet up. If a rider ignores a violation notice from an officer, they are subject to being ejected, the rules state.
O'Keefe was also allowed to board the next train without incident.
Compare ABC's coverage of O'Keefe to how they, and the media in general, either ignored or downplayed the horrific stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on a train in Charlotte, NC. Zarutska was stabbed in August, and until at least September 7, ABC News didn't mention her murder at all. When they did write their first story on September 8, they omitted demographic information about the suspect, Decarlos Brown, Jr. They followed that up with a lengthy piece about Brown's mental health struggles.
So a white lady apparently complained he had his feet on the seat on public transport. Maybe she was being a total Karen but there's no reason to believe this is necessarily a racial thing and it sure as hell is not a national news story. https://t.co/sgMITmi19I
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) September 23, 2025
This is why President Trump was right when he called the media "the enemy of the people."