Comedian Elayne Boosler said she was detained in handcuffs for two hours at Dodger Stadium on Sunday after arguing with an employee over the ballpark’s clear bag policy.
The 71-year-old was not allowed to enter the stadium with her non-see-through handbag to watch the Los Angeles Dodgers play the New York Mets. “Shame on you, Dodger Stadium. Shame on you. You know me. I’ve done so much free work for you for decades,” Boosler said in a video posted to her YouTube channel.
“And even if I wasn’t me, if I was just a customer who was coming to the game, to be treated like that, for anyone to be treated like that is so awful. You need to talk to your personnel and you really need to get rid of that guy with the tiny, little bit of power who is definitely not a people person.”
Boosler clarified that she doesn’t want the employee to be fired and said she never had an issue bringing her regular purse to previous games, via Chuck Schilken of the L.A. Times:
“Of course I don’t want the guy to be fired,” she wrote. “We were both wrong but he was more wrong and it escalated when it shouldn’t have. I went to Dodger games last year with a regular purse and never had an issue so I was pretty surprised about the whole thing.”
In her video, Boosler said that her bag was “10 inches across.” The Dodger Stadium clear bag policy states that the only non-clear bags allowed must be smaller than 5 inches by 8 inches by 2 inches in size.
Boosler was set to attend the Dodgers game that afternoon with her nephew and his 8-year-old child. After refusing to bring the bag back to her car, she was allegedly arrested and placed in the back of a police car.
However, Boosler was eventually allowed to leave on her own without being booked.
Dodger Stadium security criticism
Dodger Stadium security personnel previously faced criticism this season when Amber Roman caught Shohei Ohtani’s first home run with the Dodgers and allegedly was separated from her husband during a negotiation process.
The Dodgers later invited Roman back to the stadium for an opportunity to meet Ohtani, and said they would review their process of retrieving a historic ball.
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