MBTA Transit Police responded Thursday morning to rider concerns of suspicious activity on the Orange Line for what apparently turned out to be two people praying, according to MBTA General Manager Frank DePaola.

“Some people riding our system noticed two people that appeared to be Middle Eastern, and in their opinion, they were acting suspicious,” DePaola told Boston Herald Radio Thursday. “We responded because we got the call. It turns out that they were two citizens lawfully — as I understand it they may have been praying, because it’s Ramadan.”

The incident came days after a mass shooting terror attack in an Orlando nightclub, in which its perpetrator declared his allegiance to ISIS prior to being killed.


“Hopefully it was resolved in a very gentle manner,” DePaola said. “It was a general misunderstanding.”

According to the Herald, the riders were approached by officers who held rifles. They were approached at Wellington Station, T spokesman Joe Pesaturo said.

DePaola said racial and religious profiling is “a concern” as the T asks people to report suspicious activity with its “See Something, Say Something” campaign. He said the T has been “harping on” the campaign since the Orlando attack.

“It is a concern,” DePaola told Herald Radio. “I think one of the backlashes of heightened security is people become overly sensitive. And whether you’re from the Middle East or the Far East or anywhere that looks unfamiliar to people, or maybe have habits or practices that are unfamiliar with people that live in the area, in this heightened sense of security, people could interpret that as something suspicious.”

But DePaola said transit police must “err on the side of caution and investigate.”

“We do want to have people call. We’d rather err on the side of caution, but we have to be sensitive,” he said.

“The hope is that 100 percent of these things turn out to be nothing,” he added.


DePaola described the T as a “soft target” for a potential terror attack. He said the agency has plans in place for security issues. “We have regular communication with federal, state, and municipal authorities,” he said.

The call led to a delay for commuters, the Herald reports.