BART police rolling with safety in numbers plan
System leaders say increase in gun seizures, arrests can be tied to passengers seeing more officers on trains, but a critic calls it `spin'
BART police Officers Nick Luzano and Jon Chu stepped onto a train in Walnut Creek this week, chatting with passengers and making eye contact as they strode through the cars.
Some passengers said the visible presence of police — part of the Safe and Clean Plan — made them feel safer. It's part of an effort to increase ridership that has dipped significantly since the start of the pandemic.
This week the agency also touted a surge in felony arrests and gun seizures as proof that they are succeeding, though the agency's elected board president expressed skepticism that the numbers actually showed a safer experience for riders.
“I feel safer, I do, just to know that they're on there and that they're out and about,” said Jessica Platin, a Pleasant Hill woman who said she uses the system a couple of times a week and has seen officers more than in the past. “People mostly leave you alone anyway, but it's a deterrent.”
BART's quarterly performance
review, released in February, showed that 20% of BART riders reported seeing an officer on the train during their trip, a mark the agency said is a record high. The previous mark of 17% had been set in the previous three months. Both figures exceeded the department's official goal of 12%, the agency said.
“I ride all the time, during the day and at night,” Walnut Creek resident Daniel Hewitt said. “I'd
say it's still really bad as far you still see people all the time on fentanyl or other drugs — just things you don't want to see. I do see cops at every station now though, so they are visible.”
The number of felony arrests in 2023 increased 62% over its 2022 total, BART police said this week, from 448 arrests in 2022 to 726 last year. Forty-nine illegal guns were seized last year, an increase of 22.5% over the 40 seized in 2022 and the highest number BART had recorded in 20 years, according to the agency.
Police said they also had recovered 12 guns since the start of the new year.
“These latest arrest and gun seizure numbers are a credit to all the hard work of our officers,” BART Police Chief Kevin Franklin said in a statement. “Since we started deploying more patrol officers to ride trains, we have seen an impact. And our
riders are telling us they notice the difference.”
Not everybody sees it the same way.
“It's not quite the bright story that they're putting out,” board Director Debora Allen said of BART police. “The spin they're putting on it is disturbing to me.”
Allen said police were building on the word “presence” when in reality, she said, police presence on trains is only one small part of the security operation for the system. She said the system had three officers on trains in 2022, a number that was increased in 2023 but still seemed small for a system that spans much of the Bay Area.
“On average, we have seven officers on full-time train duty,” Allen said. “That's for a system that has 50 stations and comprises 110 miles.”
Allen said she does periodic surveys of police staffing; BART is currently authorized for 185 sworn positions. Her most recent check, she said, showed 19 unfulfilled positions. Twenty-three of the positions that BART police call “filled” are recruits still in the academy, she said.
According to Allen, the number of violent crimes rose 13% on BART property in 2023 from 2022, and the number of property crimes went up 59%. As for the number of increased felony arrests, Allen said arrest numbers only tell part of the story.
“What I would say is, does it comfort riders to know that 62% of guys committing felonies were caught?” she said. “Well, it would if they were prosecuted and the cases carried through.”
BART police have emphasized an increase in their presence since September when BART presented the Safe and Clean Plan. The plan proposed more police visibility on trains, a reduction in response time and fewer serious incidents.
The agency also committed to filling all of its police vacancies and adding an 19 additional positions. Officers also received a 22% pay increase approved by BART's Board of Directors.
During their brief time Thursday walking through two cars, a dozen passengers looked up to acknowledge their presence.
“It's definitely a big difference between day and night,” Hewitt said. “That's probably when their presence makes the biggest difference.”