Metro's Transit Police chief said yesterday that she is exploring whether to train officers in techniques for talking argumentative riders into complying with public conduct laws, after several arrests that she said have subjected officers to ridicule and misunderstanding.
In a letter sent last week to the system's 381 transit officers, Chief Polly Hanson described some of the negative reaction to the arrests of riders for eating or talking loudly in Metro stations.
Chief Polly Hanson said transit officers might benefit from more training on how to defuse confrontations with riders.
(Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post)
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She said she will study ways to keep verbal confrontations from escalating. Posters are being designed to alert customers to regulations banning food and drink inside the stations, Hanson said. She also said she is considering training sessions that would emphasize "verbal communications skills" that officers could employ in encouraging riders to follow their orders.
Hanson said transit officers are caught between public demands for a clean and orderly Metro system and public outrage over strict interpretations of the rules.
"I think people have been humiliated for doing their jobs and doing what they think customers are asking them to do," she said. "We heard at public hearings that people were dissatisfied with the eating and drinking they saw, and they wanted to see more enforcement. Officers perceive they are doing their jobs, and they are being overly criticized for what they are asked to do."
Hanson declined to provide a copy of her letter, saying it was an internal communication. She said it did not specifically mention any incidents or names. But the letter did refer to the news coverage that accompanied the arrest of several patrons who talked back to officers trying to warn them.
In August, a woman was handcuffed and jailed after a confrontation with a transit officer at Metro Center in Northwest Washington. The woman had popped the last bite of a PayDay candy bar into her mouth after the officer warned her not to eat in the station.
In September, a pregnant woman was pushed to the ground and handcuffed at the Wheaton Metro station after she argued with an officer who had told her to lower her voice while she spoke on a cell phone.
In 2000, Metro received nationwide publicity when a transit officer handcuffed a 12-year-old girl for eating a french fry on a subway platform.
"The communique shared things that have been in your newspaper about how they're perceived and misunderstood," Hanson said. "Rightly or wrongly, they're being perceived this way. . . . All we want to do is warn people and have them comply so we can avert some of the humiliation."
Some board members have complained to Metro officials that rigid enforcement of some laws is foolish and occasionally out of bounds.
Charles Deegan, the Prince George's County representative on Metro's governing board, wrote an e-mail to Hanson criticizing the decision to prosecute the "candy bar lady."
"Not only does it belittle the role of the transit police in the eyes of the public, but it adversely affects the image of [Metro] as a whole," he wrote. Later he concluded: "This is a no-win case. We look foolish if we win, and more foolish if we lose."
Deegan said additional training is needed to teach officers how to defuse potentially bellicose encounters with riders who consider the conduct rules nuisances that can be willfully ignored.
