Metro leaders unanimously vote in favor of creating its own police unit

The LA Metro Board of Directors unanimously voted Thursday to create its own police force amid an uptick in violent crimes reported across the transit system.

Dubbed the “Transit Community Public Safety Department implementation plan,” (TCPSD) the proposal calls for the creation of an in-house public safety department over a five-year transition. Transit leaders voted on the plan in a meeting Thursday.

“We still recognize there is a need for more our public is looking for more,” said Robert Gunmer, Deputy Chief of Systems Security and Law Enforcement at Metro. “You will see dedicated metro police with their primary focus their only focus on transit services.”

As part of the plan, recruits for the police force would undergo a four-week training program and officers would be deployed via a zone-based deployment model. It will replace Metro’s current system, which contracts multiple agencies to enforce safety across its public transit.

"Metro will have direct oversight and operational control of its law enforcement services of its public safety and this will be a program that will allow for greater coverage of our public safety personal throughout the system, which in turn will provide a safer and better experience for all our riders and patrons," said Carlos Rico, Senior Manager Systems of Security and Law Enforcement for Metro.

Currently, the multi-agency contract costs the transit system $194 million per year. The TCPSD proposal is expected to cost an estimated $193 million yearly and will include the daily deployment of:

• 386 sworn officers
• 34 transit officers
• 673 ambassadors
• Crisis intervention and homeless outreach teams.

"We looked at all of the issues impacting Metro riders and they are societal issues," Gunmer said. "So, what we are doing is we are heavily investing in care-based human interest approaches along with what you would consider traditional law enforcement, as well."

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Now that the proposal has been approved, it is unclear how soon it will be implemented.