Report on BART reveals racial disparities in policing.

BART’s Police Department is committing to six new measures for more equitable policing, including updating its gun use policy, following recommendations from an outside agency in a longanticipated report published Friday.

The Center for Policing Equity, a research think tank, reviewed BART police data from 2012 to 2017. Its study revealed that BART police were more likely to stop Black people and use force against them. Nearly one in four useofforce incidents involved police holding or pointing a gun, a majority of times at Black people.

The report said “these disparities do not necessarily indicate that police officers have engaged in biased or discriminatory behavior.” Disparities could be explained by community characteristics, individual officer behavior and department policies and culture, as well as by the relationship between the police and the community, the report explained.

But they were still a cause for further investigation and change.

“I take the findings of this report seriously and look at them as an initial benchmark against which future progress can be measured,” BART Police Chief Ed Alvarez said in a statement Friday. “This is a critical step in our journey to fully ensure ( BART Police Department) is engaging in equitable policing.”

BART’s Police Department has come under criticism since one of its officers shot Oscar Grant to death in Fruitvale station in 2009. Since then, the agency has taken incremental steps to change its policing and reached out to the center to conduct the review. The results were released amid a flurry of recent reform following a tumultuous year for policing in 2020. Also on Friday, BART unfurled its new plan to hire social workers to respond to mental health, homeless and drug addiction issues instead of filling vacant police officer positions under a new bureau of progressive policing.

The report raised concerns about some findings in the data, including the following major points:

Police stopped twice as many Black people as white people in vehicles. Nearly half of riders stopped by BART police ( 49%) were Black and 63% of people who experienced force were Black, compared to their 8.7% share of the estimated racial population served by BART.

Police stopped Black riders at a rate eight times higher than white riders and Black people were 13 times more likely to experience use of force than white counterparts.

“Handson” force was the common type, with physical restraint used in 66% of incidents. Pointing or displaying a firearm was the second most common type used in 23% of incidents. In 63% of incidents involving the pointing or displaying of a firearm, the subject was Black.

The report recommended six changes that BART police will adopt:

Step up timely and specific data collection on useofforce incidents, stops and searches including the race of the subject and the detailed use of guns.

Require officers to write a brief narrative explanation of the reason for each stop they conduct that will be reviewed by a supervisor.

Monitor the locations and times of fare enforcement policies.

Adopt a new policy about drawing or deploying guns.

Redouble efforts to build mutual trust and open productive channels of communication between BART police and the community.

Collaborate with other officials including the BART Office of the Independent Police Auditor and the BART Police Citizen Review Board to implement the recommendations.

The potentially most significant step would change policy about how and when officers use guns. Current BART police policy defines drawing or deploying a gun to defend, detain or take a person into custody as a useofforce incident that must be documented and investigated by a supervisor, but doesn’t give specifics on what justifies that use of force. The report recommended officers may only draw or display guns if they reasonably believe that there is a substantial risk that the situation may escalate to the point where deadly force may be justified.