A woman got on a Metro train going in the wrong direction on Sunday.
During the three stops she was on the train, a man stared at her while he masturbated.
The woman, whose name was withheld, reported the incident to Metro police but was told it wasn’t a crime, according to the Washington Post.
“I didn’t know this was possible,” she said.
It’s the second woman in recent months to tell the Washington Post that Metro police told her it is legal in some cases for men to masturbate on the train.
The man who masturbated on the train Sunday morning was waiting on the platform at the Silver Springs station when the woman arrived. She said the man, whom she described as an African American with a gray buzz cut, looked at her in a way that made her uncomfortable.
When the train arrived, the woman went to a different door than the one that opened in front of her. The man followed, sitting a few rows near her, facing in her direction with his jacket over his lap. She said she debated whether to move but feared his possible reaction.
“I saw his hand clearly doing fast-paced gestures with his pants lowered,“ she said.
She filed a report online with Metro shortly after the incident and was called by transit police. The woman said police explained that the man hadn’t exposed himself and thus it wasn’t a crime.
Another officer called her Tuesday who also said it wasn’t a crime, the woman said. The officer said she would look at surveillance videos to see if the man had masturbated on the train.
Unlike laws in Virginia and Washington, D.C., Maryland requires genitals to be exposed for it to be considered indecent exposure.
However, in response to a similar incident in December near Falls Church, Virginia, a Metro police officer told a woman, “What you described is indeed a criminal act in D.C. Not in Virginia and it can be murky in Maryland.”
