Ticket Trouble

Passengers on the Long Island Railroad are accustomed to seeing themselves as victims of a callous and capricious railroad management. The line's 150,000 New York commuters, said Nassau County Leader Eugene Nickerson last week, "travel in rolling slums --if they roll at all." When four commuters who share this opinion got together recently and staged a minor rebellion, they learned just how tough the authorities can be. The rebels were an employment counselor, Allen Simmons, 21, and three secretaries, Diane Glucksman, 21, Carole Geiger, 22, and Frances Piecora, 20.

Humiliating Postures. It was on a day like any other on the Long Island: the trains were unheated, overcrowded and late. While riding home at night, the four decided that their patience had run out. When the conductor came around, they informed him that they would show him their tickets only when they started to receive better service from the railroad. In response, Conductor Charles Farnsworth signaled for the train to stop at the next station. All four were arrested on an obscure misdemeanor charge, "theft of service." Then they were taken in a police paddy wagon to Brooklyn night court, where a judge set bail at $500 each.

Unable to produce the bail money, they spent the night in jail. The three secretaries were taken to the Women's House of Detention, where they were fingerprinted and asked to strip. A male doctor, looking for narcotics, examined them. "We were forced to assume all kinds of awkward and humiliating postures," Carole Geiger later said. Simmons, who was handcuffed and taken to the men's jail--"the Tombs"--was unable to contact his family. He claimed that when he filled out a form requesting that police call his father, a cop quipped: "Do you think these calls really go out?" Simmons was bailed out the next afternoon only because the railroad had advised Carole Geiger's family of the arrests.

Allies in Arrogance. Last week, when the four came before Judge J. Wolfe Chasson in Queens Criminal Court, he threw out the charges, saying: "This case is a waste of time." In Chasson's opinion, the four commuters should have been put off at the next regular stop, but not arrested. Describing the conditions that brought about the revolt, the judge said: "I don't think people should be dumped into a train in which there is no heat and no seats."

Complaints about the treatment of the four protesters were not only directed at the railroad. The New York Times referred to the police and the Brooklyn night-court judge as "allies in arrogance" of the road. Edward Dudley, a justice of the New York Supreme Court, announced the start of an investigation into the high bail figure set for the four rebels. "This is not the kind of case for which bail would normally be required," said Dudley. "Someone has made a serious mistake." Deciding that the affair was serious indeed--and that someone ought to pay for their discomfort--the four commuters announced at week's end that they would sue both the railroad and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs it, for false arrest and malicious prosecution.

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