In February, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced plans to deploy D.C. police to accompany transit officers at Metro stations across the District — hoping, she said, that the extra patrols would help keep commuters safe amid growing concerns about shootings on the city’s public transit system.
“I remember when crimes committed on buses and trains was something that you’d be like, ‘Oh, my God, what happened?’ Now it’s like, ‘Oh, again,’” said Ronald L. Moten, who has worked for decades on violence prevention in D.C. “It’s normal. It’s part of the behavior.”
Crime this year in the Metro system, as of the end of April, was far above where it was at the same time last year, according to Metro Transit Police statistics. The numbers include incidents on buses, trains, in parking lots and at other Metro facilities. Robberies were up 156 percent, larcenies had doubled and aggravated assaults had increased by 35 percent. On Sunday morning, the system saw its fourth homicide of the year. Seventeen-year-old Brendan Ofori, of Fort Washington, Md., was fatally shot aboard a train as it pulled into the Waterfront station, after a dispute with a man police say boarded a few stops earlier.
The increases come as Metro riders seem to be returning to the system, which last week announced it had hit its highest ridership since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Metro General Manager Randy Clarke has said fighting crime is one of his top priorities — cracking down even on fare evasion with new fare gates to keep the system safe. Metro said Tuesday that D.C. officers are helping patrol four stations: Gallery Place, Metro Center, Union Station and Deanwood.
Bowser initially announced five stations would get extra patrols, though in some cases, Metro has shifted stations from being watched by additional officers during rush-hour periods to being guarded by private security during all service hours. Two stations in Maryland and three stations in Virginia are also being patrolled by area law enforcement, allowing transit police to roam more on trains and buses, authorities said.
Special police officers or private security granted police authority by Metro have been assigned to patrol nearly 20 percent of Metro’s 97 stations from opening to close, a significant increase from earlier this year.
And for the first time, Metro hired six crisis intervention specialists, who officials say have been called for help at least 200 times. Twenty-two new “ambassadors” are also roaming the busiest Metro stations and assisting passengers. They serve as additional “eyes and ears,” a Metro spokeswoman said.
Officials have suggested that their interventions are working, pointing to an April report that shows total crime down 20 percent at Metro stations guarded with area partner officers or special police since the extra patrols began. Just last week, transit police said they arrested a 24-year-old District man after he failed to comply with an ID check and police searched him, finding two semiautomatic handguns and brass knuckles, according to a transit police tweet.
But some riders said they feel no safer.
Skye Hairston, an 18-year-old student at American University, said she takes Metro almost daily from her campus in Tenleytown to her family home in Anacostia. She said she has not noticed a significant increase in security, and has continued to take extra precautions on her commutes across town: rarely using her phone, looking around and having pepper spray ready.
“I think it’s always been pretty bad,” Hairston, a lifelong D.C. resident, said of Metro. “I’ve seen a lot on there.”
Ofori’s shooting came not long after the killing of another teenager in the Metro system. In mid-May, 18-year-old Tenneson Vaughn Leslie Jr. was shot in the head as he ran from two assailants on a Metro platform in Wheaton; police later arrested a 16-year-old and a 14-year-old in the case. And in February, a Metro employee was fatally shot after he tried to stop a gunman targeting commuters inside the Potomac Avenue Metro station.
Efforts to reach Ofori’s family were unsuccessful. Police appealed for the public’s help identifying the assailant but had not made an arrest by Tuesday.
The increase in crime on Metro has corresponded with rising violence in the city. Homicides across the District were up 15 percent and overall violent crime was up 16 percent compared with the same time last year, according to the most recent data. Midday on Tuesday, a restaurant worker was shot inside Tony’s Place on H Street NE, and police said they were investigating whether a customer was responsible for the attack.
As of May 18, more than 40 youths had been shot so far this year in D.C. — more than double compared with the same time last year. Eight people younger than 18 have been killed.
Many cities across the country have continued to struggle with safety aboard public trains and buses during the pandemic, but some have seen conditions improve. In New York, police reported an 8 percent decline in major crime in the transit system during the first four months of the year compared with the same period last year. Police attributed the drop to the increased visibility of officers at trains and stations and beefed-up patrols, according to a statement.
Other jurisdictions, though, have struggled. In the San Francisco area, survey results from a poll conducted by the Bay Area Council, a business association, showed that nearly half of the people cited concerns over safety, fear and cleanliness as reasons they don’t ride Bay Area Rapid Transit trains more. Transit police for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority in the Philadelphia area announced last week that the system would start enforcing a rule prohibiting ski masks from being worn during rides after multiple incidents where a suspect was wearing one, according to news reports.
Sherri Ly, a Metro spokesperson, said in a statement that transit police have worked “closely with law enforcement around the region to deter and prevent crimes. She added: “Unfortunately, we are dealing with gun violence and other societal issues as a whole and Metro is a microcosm of our larger community.”