Should Metro Have Its Own Police Department?

Last week we all saw the video of a 15 year old girl beaten unconscious by another teenager in the Metro Bus Tunnel at Westlake.

We watched, dumbfounded and outraged as three security guards contracted by the county stood right next to the altercation and did nothing- hell they did less than nothing, if that’s possible.

Metro was actually paying a private security company to provide guards that didn’t actually perform as security guards.

Instead, they were paid to “observe and report”. Nothing more.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to get my ass kicked while the very people I thought were there to help me literally turned their backs and did nothing.

It makes you wonder what else has been observed and reported by metro security. What else have they’ve just sat by and watched happen?

Once the video was out the County moved quickly to order a review and change the contract with the security company. Now guards can intervene when they witness these kinds of incidents.

I’m not impressed with the change. Metro knew this incident happened for weeks- but only took action once the video went public. They waited.

I’m not impressed with the rent-a-cop arrangement either. We have a comprehensive public transit system without comprehensive safety measures.

As it stands, if an assault happens on a Metro bus it might be a city beat cop who responds, a Metro security guard or a member of the Metro Police Department.

That right, Metro does have its own police department- sort of. Metro PD is a part of the County Sheriff’s office. It even has its own Chief, a guy you’ve probably never heard of, Dave Jutilla.

There are just 47 members of the Metro PD from the Chief, to bike cops, detectives, deputies and investigators. That’s like having 1 officer for every 44 square miles of the roughly 21,000 square mile county, or one officer for ever 27 vehicles of Metro’s 1300 vehicle fleet.

Compare that to the Seattle Police Department. Seattle is about 88 square miles. According to our friends over at Seattle Crime, the police department employs about 1300 officers, half of which are uniformed officers.

As if Metro police weren’t already stretched painfully thin- along comes light rail.

According to Chief Jutilla, to meet the additional demand they “realigned our workforce and hired additional security guards to support these new services.”

Translation: They weren’t given more funding to hire more cops, so they reassigned the ones they had. That probably means they reduced coverage in other areas, increased over time and are relying even more on contracted rent-a-cops.

That isn’t a solution.

What we have here is a greater disaster waiting to happen. Metro PD should operate as its own entity, separate from the Sheriff’s office, with the budget and resources required to make sure the county has dedicated first responders on every Metro line- including the tunnel.

It would be naive of us to think that the incident with the 15 year old girl was the first of its kind- it wasn’t. There are assaults, robberies, thefts, vandalism and other crimes committed on metro buses, in the tunnel and park & rides every day.

The only difference is this one was caught on camera.

What do you think of this post?

Say That Then! (0) Very Interesting (0) Helpful (0) Meh It's Aight (0) Dislike! (0)