BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is no stranger to police brutality bad publicity. There was the shooting of Oscar Grant, which turned into a racially-charged national discourse, and more recently the fatal shooting of a 45-year-old male.
Therefore, concerned with a potential protest from a group called “No Justice No Bart,” who ruffled feathers in the BART world with a prior July 11 demonstration, BART took action in the form of cutting off their cell phone service for several hours, citing concern over protesters “[using] mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of Bart police,” said a statement released by BART on Friday.
The move was met with an overwhelmingly negative response and questions over First Amendment rights. However, being that BART pays for their cell phone service on their trains, they do have the right to shut it down at any time.
Protest-wise though, BART did what it set out to do—“No Justice No Bart” didn’t have a demonstration on Friday. Not to mention, thousands of commuters were unable to check the score of the A’s game because of it.
[via NY Times]
