A member of BART’s board of directors has a license to carry a concealed handgun in public after telling authorities his role as an elected official requires him to decide “controversial issues” and that he particularly fears violence by Black Lives Matter activists, public records show.

John McPartland, who was first elected in 2008 and represents parts of Alameda County, has had the license since at least 2010. It’s not clear when and where he carries a gun, and he did not respond to repeated requests — in person, by phone and by email — for an interview.

But in a series of renewal applications with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, he cited protests that stemmed from the fatal BART police shooting of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009, including a riot in downtown Oakland and an incident in April 2009 in which a man threw paint on then-General Manager Dorothy Dugger during a board meeting. McPartland described no specific threat to him personally.

“As an elected official, I am often the decision maker and focal point on controversial issues,” McPartland wrote in his latest renewal application on April 20, 2015. “Some of those issues are volatile, draw a great deal of media and result in violence by irrational members of the public.”

McPartland said BART meetings are relatively secure, with police officers on hand and visitors’ bags checked, but that outside the boardroom he and his colleagues “are highly recognizable by potentially irrational, outraged and/or unstable members of the public. We are also unprotected, approachable and vulnerable.”

Criteria for permit

The Sheriff’s Office, which issues the permits, has criteria that must be met by a person wishing to carry a concealed gun including a “documented, presently existing, clear and present danger to life, or great bodily harm.” The threat must be specific to the applicant, and beyond the scope of something that law enforcement can reasonably handle.

Capt. Shawn Petersen, who heads the sheriff’s Internal Affairs division, said applications go through a “multilayered” review and are examined by him, the undersheriff and the sheriff, who has final approval. JD Nelson, a spokesman for the sheriff, said threats described by license applicants are not investigated by the agency.

“When someone puts in an application and cites a general threat, we don’t go out and investigate each specific threat,” Nelson said. “Especially when it’s an elected official, we take them at their word.”

State law requires residents to show “good cause” to carry a concealed pistol or revolver, while leaving permit issuance up to the sheriffs, who records show are far more likely to issue them in rural than in urban counties. McPartland is one of 222 permit-holders in Alameda County, a roster that includes law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors and ordinary citizens, according to data from the California Department of Justice Firearms Bureau.

Case under review

That number could skyrocket soon depending on the outcome of a case under review by a federal appeals court in San Francisco. Gun rights advocates are arguing for the right of any law-abiding adult to carry a hidden firearm in public in California, one of a handful of states that allow local governments to deny concealed-weapons permits.

McPartland, 71, was elected after serving as a BART safety specialist for six years. Previously, he served as a longtime Oakland firefighter, and he retired from the Army as a colonel after doing multiple tours in Vietnam and the first Iraq War.

In his most recent application, he referred to the Black Lives Matter movement that arose from high-profile police killings around the country. He said activists’ “demonstrations, public disobedience and confrontations” forced Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley to use police protection in public as she prosecuted a group of protestors who chained themselves to a BART train in Oakland on Nov. 28, 2014.

Cat Brooks, one of the arrested members of the Black Friday 14, laughed when she heard McPartland had cited her group as a reason for needing to carry a firearm.

“That’s absurd,” she said. “He is offering up a shining example of why we need the Black Lives Matter movement. The idea that black bodies assembled, asserting our rights ... would mean that he should need to use deadly force against someone is absurd.”

Brooks said the protest mentioned by McPartland in his application was completely peaceful.

“We were singing spirituals and laughing,” she said. “The BART cops that were there were even tapping their feet.”

Protester weighs in

The protester who flung red paint at BART’s general manager after the police shooting of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale Station said it was an act of protest, not violence, and was no justification for an elected official to arm himself.

“To try to cite that, kids’ paint thrown at a meeting, as an act of violence is ridiculous,” said Gabriel Meyers, 36, who served a brief jail sentence and now lives in Sacramento. “If someone else goes to do that and gets shot over it, that seems like a much bigger issue.”

McPartland did not want his status as a concealed-gun carrier to be made public. In 2012, records show, he applied to carry a second, smaller firearm, explaining that it would be more “practical and prudent” while out at public social events with his wife.

More important, he wrote, “As an elected official and subject to being interviewed and photographed by the press at any time and under any circumstances, if my (gun) were to be discovered, photographed, and publicized, the adverse notoriety could potentially increase public sensitivity.”