Riders’ advocates to host forum on incidents, down from 2010 A Metro rider was assaulted in front of a group of other riders on the platform at the transit agency’s L’Enfant Plaza station in January.
The next month, a man was attacked when he called 911 to stop a group of teens from attacking a teen at the Suitland station.
| Want to go? | ||||||
| A public forum on crime in the Metro system will run from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Metro’s headquarters, 600 Fifth Street NW. The Jackson Graham building is accessible from the Judiciary Square stop on the Red Line or the Gallery Place stop on the Yellow/Green lines. | ||||||
| Crime statistics | ||||||
| Crime | January-June 2009 | January-June 2010 | January-June 2011 | |||
| Total serious crimes | 866 | 1,074 | 904 | |||
| Aggravated assault | 43 | 55 | 59 | |||
| Larceny | 346 | 421 | 329 | |||
| Auto theft | 91 | 52 | 67 | |||
| Robbery | 381 | 540 | 449 | |||
In March, a teen was stabbed on a W6 Metrobus in Anacostia.
Other high-profile attacks followed, including the shooting of a woman during a carjacking at a Metro parking garage.
Metro riders were victims of hundreds of crimes in the system over the last six months, although the number of incidents dropped slightly from the same period last year.
Now Metro riders have a chance to voice their concerns about crime on the system. The agency’s rider advocates group is hosting a public forum Wednesday evening on how to keep the system safe. Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn is slated to talk and listen to riders’ concerns.
“The high-profile assaults that have happened this year really have a lot of riders nervous,” said Frank DeBernardo, chairman of the Riders’ Advisory Council. “They are very concerned with not just how the police department can prevent them but how Metro staff and other Metro riders should respond.”
But most riders likely aren’t aware of the event. It was not listed on Metro’s online calendar as of Monday afternoon when a reporter asked about it. No news releases had gone out and the chief spokesman did not know about it.
“We were relying on Metro to do the publicity and I’m not sure what kind of job they’ve done,” DeBernardo told The Washington Examiner.
Crime dropped slightly in the first six months of this year compared with last year, according to Metro statistics. But last year, crime on the transit system hit a six-year high.
So although the 904 serious crime cases that occurred in the first six months represent a drop from the 1,074 cases in 2010, the numbers are still higher than they were in 2009, when Metro had 866 cases at that same point. And aggravated assaults are up slightly for the first six months of this year, with 59 cases compared with 55 cases in 2010.
DeBernardo said the riders’ group has wanted to host a forum with police since last spring. He said he hopes it can help improve the relationship between riders and police, which soured after a May 19 incident in which a man in a motorized wheelchair was thrown to the ground by two Metro Transit officers. The U.S. Attorney’s Office dropped a charge against the man, Dwight Harris, but is still reviewing the actions of the officers, spokesman Bill Miller said Monday.
