The LA Metro Board of Directors is considering creating 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 will discuss the possibility of the plan in a meeting scheduled for 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 would replace Metro’s current system, which contracts multiple agencies to enforce safety across its public transit.
Currently, the multi-agency contract costs the transit system $194 million per year. The TCPSD proposal includes four different service models that range in price from $155 million to $214 million.
“There will be an additional 141 transit ambassadors out in the system deployed daily,” Gunmer said. “And additional homeless ambassadors deployed daily.”
Transit officials will further discuss the proposal Thursday. If approved, it is unclear how soon it would be implemented.