BART to add onboard ambassadors

“This call for defunding and abolishing — it really means defund and abolish the way we did things before.”

Lateefah Simon, BART board president

The call to defund the police has reached BART, where leaders pledged Friday to shift $2 million from sworn officers and fare inspectors, and instead spend it on unarmed ambassadors.

“This call for defunding and abolishing — it really means defund and abolish the way we did things before,” said BART Board President Lateefah Simon, a longtime social justice advocate. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently appointed her to lead a statewide working group on police reform.

The transit agency would take the money from funds earmarked for costs related to COVID19. Originally, BART officials had set it aside to hire five officers and four fare inspectors, but at a recent board meeting, Director Rebecca Saltzman had an alternate suggestion: beef up BART’s ambassador program, in which uniformed staff patrol the trains and make riders feel more welcome.

Simon also wants to add at least one staff member to BART’s Office of the Independent Police Auditor, which investigates complaints of police misconduct. Funding for that position would come from the general manager’s discretionary budget. It’s not clear at this point how much it would cost.

Additionally, BART Police Chief Ed Alvarez pledged to start training his force to follow AB392, a state law that took effect Jan. 1 that states police can use deadly force only “when necessary in defense of human life” and should use deescalation techniques prior to firing their guns.

These changes, which still require approval next week when the board passes its new budget, come amid a national reckoning over race and police violence. BART began grappling with these issues 11 years ago after thenBART police officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot an unarmed man, 22yearold Oscar Grant, on the platform of Fruitvale Station.

Grant became an enduring symbol for BART, a catalyst for reforms and a subject of ongoing, painful conversations. Critics of the transit agency’s police department invoked him last week, angered after Board Director Debora Allen defended the department by saying that BART police don’t murder people.

Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff charged Mehserle with murder, but he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years behind bars.

Simon hopes to start working with Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, and other mothers affected by police violence to develop antiracism training for police officers.

Grant’s uncle, Cephus Johnson, was pleased with the measures, some of which he’d pitched during a news conference earlier in the week to call for Allen’s resignation.

“This is good news,” he said. “Maybe they heard me.”