OAKLAND — BART’s new police chief — under fire for not publicizing a recent robbery and assault at the Coliseum station — defended the department’s shift in how it reports crime, saying the agency would release detailed information about specific incidents on a “case-by-case basis.”

On Monday, BART police Chief Carlos Rojas insisted that by switching to a new online crime mapping tool, the agency is actually providing “more information” than it used to, despite protests from some members of BART’s governing board who described the change as “very disappointing” and a move away from transparency.

The transit agency has been hit with a $3 million claim stemming from a widely publicized incident on April 22 incident when 50-60 teens jumped the fare gates at the Coliseum station and beat three members of one family and robbed seven people. But there was no immediate alerts released by BART about a June 30 event when about a dozen people on a train at the same station robbed a woman of her cell phone and fought with another passenger.

Not long after Rojas started work in late May, he made the decision to stop issuing daily curated email reports on police calls at BART, which described in short paragraphs the reported crime and the department’s response, and instead, to send BART crime information to the free online tool, CrimeMapping.com.

The previous reports were sent to only between 300 to 500 people, Rojas said, and the online mapping tool has all of the crimes reported to BART, instead of just a select few. For example, the site allows users to look at all crimes within one location and then filter that information to show only robberies or only assaults. People can also filter information by police department and by date. The tool also allows users to create graphs that show trends over time.

“We went to CrimeMapping.com to increase the access of information for all people that have internet connections,” he said. “It provides the ability to filter through different activity that’s occurring at a BART station, but (does so) within the context of the communities we serve.”

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Oakland: Woman on trackway forced MacArthur BART station closure But it requires users to be more proactive. Rather than receiving daily updates in one’s inbox, users have to log on to CrimeMapping.com daily to see updated information. It doesn’t allow users to view all crimes reported on BART in a single summary — rather, users must look at individual stations, or stations within a 2-mile radius of each other. BART’s district spans more than 100 miles.

And the incidents listed there do not contain any details about what transpired; it lists only the type of crime reported to police, whether or not the report was verified, and how many people were involved.

BART board directors Joel Keller and Debora Allen both lamented the change and said it was a disservice to the riding public.

“It doesn’t show the details of what happened,” Allen said. “People do need to be aware of what’s happening on the trains.”

Keller went further, saying patrons will stop using the system if they don’t feel safe or informed.

“There is a growing perception that there are increased risks to taking BART,” he said. “We need to reverse that, or it could be very serious for our future.”

Responding to the criticism, Rojas said BART will issue more detailed information to the public on a “case-by-case basis,” but said it would be up to BART’s communication team to determine when such information should be released.

“You’d have to talk to BART communications about what would rise to the level of a press conference or a press release,” he said.

But Taylor Huckaby, a spokesman for BART who is on the agency’s communications team, said in a separate interview on Monday it was up to the police to tell them when to release information about a particular crime.

“That’s the determination of our police department,” he said.

If there is an unusual incident — say, 10 or 12 people who robbed and beat someone on BART property — Rojas said such a crime would rise to the level of informing the public.

But that doesn’t always happen.

The June 30 incident, roughly five weeks after Rojas assumed the role of chief, 10 to 13 people grabbed a woman’s cell phone on a train at the Coliseum station and scuffled with a man who ran after them to retrieve her property. No information was released to the public about the crime until reporters started asking the department for specifics.

Despite saying several times he was committed to transparency in the department, Rojas deflected blame when he was asked why the department didn’t tell riders about the June 30 incident.

“Now, as the chief of police, I’m in charge of 300 people. So, I’m not necessarily the person having the conversation (with the communications team),” he said. “There would be a dialogue and what was said in any dialogue regarding any specific incident that occurred, I don’t have that information for you at this time.”