Making Metro and the Streets Safer

I remain focused on tackling the increase in crime we’ve seen across our city and in our Metro system over the past year, and I’m pleased to share several recent actions taken by the District Council and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Last week, WMATA announced several changes that will boost police patrols in stations and on railcars and buses. These measures will result in sharp increases in the number of officers on patrol at selected times of day and better utilize officers working in “limited duty” status, providing additional “eyes and ears” at key locations.

Metro Transit Police have already implemented the following changes:

• Reassign 17 officers to Patrol Operations. By transfering responsibility for securing revenue to an outside firm, MTPD will immediately make available 11 officers and an additional 6 officers within 60 days.

• Implement “power hour” deployments. MTPD will strategically use overtime to overlap the department’s day-shift and evening-shift officers on selected days and at selected locations. By having the two shifts overlap, the number of officers on duty can nearly double during hours when patrol coverage is needed most (i.e., during late-afternoon and evening hours).

• Reassign officers on qualifying “limited duty” status. Officers who are not on full duty status but are cleared to work on a limited duty basis will be assigned to stations based on crime trends. These officers, who may be in high-visibility vests or in casual clothes, will be equipped with police radios to summon on-duty MTPD officers when needed.

Additionally, I continue to meet regularly with both WMATA leadership and senior D.C. officials to evaluate our public safety efforts. I say this very conservatively, but WMATA has been successful at apprehending individuals who commit crimes in the system. Thanks to increased patrols, coordination with jurisdictional police departments and the thousands — thousands — of cameras deployed across the system, it is becoming increasingly true that if you commit a crime on Metro, you will be caught.

However, we need to continue to work on preventing crime in the system, not just on apprehending offenders. I believe the changes announced last week will help to do just that, but we must continue to improve how we utilize our resources and increase the resources available.

In addition to these recent changes at WMATA, the Council this week passed the Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Amendment Act of 2016, a bill introduced by Council member Kenyan McDuffie that provides mental health, substance abuse and community-engagement resources to tackle crime and violence in our city. While I continue to believe that the cornerstone of our strategy needs to be raising our dangerously low Metropolitan Police Department staffing levels, this bill creates additional resources to help address some of the root causes of crime in our city.

Making our city safer and stronger, through improved public safety, education and economic development, will continue to be my first priority on the Council. I will update you regularly as we work to build upon the success we have had over the past 20 years, and fight to prevent our city from taking a step backward. As always, please share with me your thoughts on how we can do this together.

*Jack Evans is the District Council member for
Ward 2, representing Georgetown and other neighborhoods since 1991.*