1 year in, BART’s police chief optimistic about ‘downward trend’ in crime, drug use

Commuters and artists pass through Civic Center Bart station on Monday, May 21, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif. Commuters and artists pass through Civic Center Bart station on Monday, May 21, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close 1 year in, BART’s police chief optimistic about ‘downward trend’ in crime, drug use 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Walking through the stream of daily commuters in San Francisco’s bustling Powell Station, BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas looked around the bright corridors Monday with cautious optimism.

Exactly one year has passed since he was sworn in as chief of the Bay Area’s biggest regional transportation agency, and he’s been busy tackling issues ranging from robberies, assaults and overt drug abuse to chronic fare evaders.

And while BART hasn’t seen sweeping improvements across its system since Rojas took over after leaving his position as top cop of the Santa Ana Police Department, things are incrementally moving in the right direction, he said.

“I believe we’ve made some progress, but I believe we have a lot more to do,” Rojas said during a wide-ranging interview Monday with The Chronicle. “We are seeing a downward trend in crime, and it’s definitely encouraging, and we’re seeing our officers being more visible and more proactive.”

He spoke as BART released its crime statistics for the first third of 2018 — and as public scrutiny has intensified over increasingly overt drug users shooting up in the corridors of downtown San Francisco stations, including Powell and Civic Center.

Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas talks about first quarter crime...

The numbers show BART’s 229 sworn officers made more arrests between the beginning of January and the end of April this year than during the same time frame in 2017. Property and violent crimes have decreased overall compared with the same period last year.

BART police arrested 148 people across the system for felony crimes and 410 for misdemeanors in the first third of 2018. Those numbers rose modestly compared with the 127 felony and 390 misdemeanor arrests during the same period the year prior.

Violent crime, meanwhile, dropped 9 percent during the same period — despite a 26 percent jump in the number of aggravated assaults — and property crime dropped 2 percent.

The numbers, Rojas said, are a move in the right direction after BART police saw a 24 percent increase in violent crime in 2017, driven largely by strong-arm robberies of electronic devices during train rides and on station platforms.

In one particularly troubling April 2017 episode, one month before Rojas became chief, dozens of teens swarmed a train at Oakland’s Coliseum Station, beating and robbing passengers. Since taking charge, Rojas said, he’s deployed officers to work overtime to patrol in and around the Oakland station.

Rojas took the helm of an agency that for the better part of the past decade has faced public criticism, including outrage over the 2009 police shooting of Oscar Grant, the 2014 death of an officer in a friendly-fire incident and the 2016 revelation that most security cameras on trains were decoys. The cameras were subsequently replaced.

BART has faced larger questions about a lack of transparency, including in leveling with the public about crime. And as the agency works to stem an estimated $25 million-a-year problem of people riding trains for free, fare evaders continue to flout the rules, bypassing gates at every station.

There have also been protests after an officer killed Sahleem Tindle, a man who was in an altercation outside the West Oakland station in January. After Rojas defended the officer, saying Tindle had already shot and wounded a second man, some criticized the chief for weighing in on a case that is still under investigation.

As the chief and his command staff work to manage the ever-changing challenges across 46 stations in four counties, public pressure has more recently focused on people shooting up in San Francisco’s stations.

One solution BART hopes to implement is closing a notorious hallway at Civic Center Station that’s become a haven for drug users. The plan just needs to be cleared by the state fire marshal. Station agents are also opening gates into the underground San Francisco stations later in the morning, delaying when people can file in before trains arrive.

“We have to be able to try different things, and if they don’t work, you step back and try something else,” said Rojas, who has been working with the San Francisco mayor’s office and Police Department to tackle the drug-use problem.

The hotbeds for shooting up outside BART’s fare gates technically fall under the jurisdiction of both San Francisco and BART police, Rojas said.

San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell said he’s been meeting with BART officials in recent weeks and is finalizing plans for a team of city outreach workers from the Department of Public Health and other agencies to work inside the city stations.

Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle BART police watch a man passed out at Powell St. Bart station on...

They’ll be accompanied by San Francisco and BART police as part of a program to bring services to addicts and homeless people that he hopes will continue after he leaves office in June.

“At the end of the day, the condition of our BART stations in San Francisco is unacceptable,” Farrell said. “I want to make sure before leaving office that we have a plan in place that will have a dramatic effect.”

Rojas walked through Civic Center Station on Monday morning, and the floor of the notorious hallway — recently cleared by the two non-sworn community resource officers who patrol Powell and Civic Center stations — almost sparkled.

But directly overhead in United Nations Plaza, a group of 50 or so people sat along a concrete ledge among scattered and soiled clothing. One man peered closely at brown fluid in a syringe, while another tightened a blue elastic band around his tattooed arm, readying a vein for a fix.

Once police leave, many in the group will head back downstairs before the end of the day. Rojas said it’s up to BART and San Francisco police to establish a consistent presence at the stations to improve safety.

“We have to be very careful, because it turns into one of these games where you’re chasing your own tail, and it’s not very effective or efficient for our officers to be doing that,” Rojas said. “So the coordination needs to be spot on.”

It isn’t just the public that has grown frustrated with the rampant drug use. On Saturday, BART Director Bevan Dufty, whose district includes Civic Center and Powell stations, was getting on BART after seeing a show with his family at the Orpheum Theatre when he ran into five people getting ready to use drugs.

Dufty said he called the chief and dispatchers, and police were there shortly after.

“I would say the chief has been responsive as it relates to changing the dynamics at the stations I represent,” he said. “I think that BART has turned a corner, and the rider experience is one of our most important qualities, along with safety and reliability.”

That progress, the chief emphasized, comes in “baby steps.” One goal for the coming year, he said, is to purchase electric motorcycles for San Francisco BART officers so they can quickly respond between stations.

Currently, two officers patrol three station beats in San Francisco, and because of gridlocked street traffic, the fastest way to respond to an emergency is to take BART.

“If there’s a critical incident, we want to be able to respond quickly, and while we have police cars, they are not as quick at getting around in the city as jumping on a motorcycle,” Rojas said.

In the coming year, he wants to hire 30 more officers to reach full staffing levels. Last year, BART hired 22 more officers — the most since 2013 — and the chief believes those fresh bodies have helped start to make BART safer and clean up stations.

The 2018 crime statistics, he hopes, are just the start.

“I’m not looking for perfection. I’m looking for progress in pursuit of perfection,” Rojas said. “That’s what I want our riders to know. We’re trying to make this as safe as possible.”

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky

Crime statistics reported by BART Police (for first 4 months of 2018)

2

Rapes reported this year, down from six in 2017.

92

Robberies, a drop of 16 percent from 2017.

43

Aggravated assaults, up 26 percent.

137

Overall violent crimes, down 9 percent.

148

Felony arrests, up 16 percent.

410

Misdemeanor arrests, up 5 percent.

0

Homicides in first third of both years.