BAY Area Rapid Transit Police Department*

"BART PD controls subscriptions to its daily crime log and does not make the log readily available to the public. There is no permanent link on the BART.gov website." The BART Police Department partially disagrees with the finding. The BART Police Department agrees that there is no permanent link to the BART Police Daily Log on the BART.gov website, but the Daily Log has been widely publicized by BART and other organizations, and subscriptions are open to the public and to the media which has resulted in hundreds of subscriptions to the service. BART PD does not control the subscriptions to the BART Police Daily Log, the service runs on an open subscription system where anyone can subscribe or unsubscribe at any time at https://bart.gov/bpdlog.

BART PD provides crime incident reports within fifteen incident categories to crimemapping.com. A crosscheck between incidents reported on the BART Police Daily Log and in the crimemapping.com website suggests that some BART PD incident data is being lost. Regarding the above finding, the BART Police Department partially disagrees with the finding. The Grand Jury report states, "it (BART Police Daily Log) provides a summary of all crimes committed the previous day," which is not actually the fact. The BART Police Daily Log contains a summary of all arrests, all bicycle thefts, all criminal incidents where there are multiple crimes at the same location or time, and any incident where there would be media significance. The daily log is a manual process by which the on-duty watch commander types the information into a Word Press website. The information entered by the watch commander is eventually emailed out to the subscriber list at a single time each day. The BART Police Daily Log is not, and has never been, used to report on all crimes that occur within the District. Having our watch commanders complete a summary of all crimes committed in a day would place an undue burden on their ability to effectively manage personnel because most of their time would be consumed by data entry. Such a system would not be consistent with police industry best practices. Crimemapping.com is fed directly from the records management system (RMS) and displays the information based on police reports that are written for each of the fifteen crime types displayed on the website. The data displayed on crimemapping.com is populated from fields completed on the police report by each reporting officer and displays it on the website using the applicable symbol for the crime type based on the crime selected by the officer in the police report. The data sharing from the RMS to crimemmapping.com occurs automatically once the police report has been approved, therefore the time in which the crime is displayed on crimemapping.com may vary depending on how long it takes for the police report to complete the approval process. With that being said, crimemapping.com is the most accurate representation of all criminal activity occurring within our District since it displays every incident for each of the fifteen crime types available on the website.

Crimemapping.com offers limited information about crimes that occur on BART property. Regarding the above finding, the BART Police Department partially disagrees with the finding. While summaries of those incidents captured by the BART Police Daily Log provide more information than what is displayed on crimemapping.com, the most accurate representation of all criminal activity occurring within our District is crimemapping.com. Every incident applicable to the fifteen crime type categories available on the website are displayed rather than just the incidents that meet the criteria for our watch commanders to place it on the BART Police Daily Log. The ability of crimemapping.com to provide customers with all the criminal incident data for each of the fifteen crime types available on the website, coupled with the ability to see the criminal incidents of many agencies surrounding the BART stations, provides customers a better way to evaluate the safety of the system and surrounding areas.

Crimemapping.com provides the public less detailed information about crime on BART than Bartcrimes.com. Regarding the above finding, the BART Police Department partially disagrees with the finding. Bartcrimes.com displays the same data available through the BART Police Daily log, in which the only difference is the interface in which the data is displayed to the user. Because Bartcrimes.com imports the data directly from the BART Police Daily Log it only contains crime information related to all arrests, all bicycle thefts, all criminal incidents where there are multiple crimes at the same location or time, and any incident where there would be media significance. While the the summaries of these incidents appear to provide more detailed information, it does not give an accurate representation of all criminal activity occurring within the District since only the incidents that meet the criteria for our watch commanders to place it on the BART Police Daily Log is being displayed. Crimemapping.com is the most accurate representation of all criminal activity occurring within our District since it displays every incident for each of the fifteen crime types available on the website one a police report has been approved in our records management system (RMS). Since the process is automated, each incident is automatically being displayed for the public for their review. Although no summary is currently available for each incident, any member of the public who requests more detailed information on any incident can always contact our on-duty watch commander to obtain the information. Under the frequently asked questions (FAQ) section on crimemapping.com, it reiterates for those wanting more detailed information about a crime to contact the appropriate agency.

BART PD is currently operating with about 16 percent fewer sworn officer than its authorized staffing level. The BART Police Department agrees with this finding.

Community Service Officers are non-sworn civilian employees that provide technical assistance to BART Police personnel and could be assigned to patrol stations and parking lots. The BART Police Department disagrees with the finding. A total of 32 Community Service Officers are assigned to uniformed patrol that include the patrolling of stations, trains and parking lots. There are 11 Community Service Officers who - are assigned to technical assignments such as Video Recovery, Evidence, Vehicle Fleet, Computer Systems, Training and Dispatch. The following is part of the Standard Operating Procedures for Community Service Officers: CSO's shall patrol their area of responsibility as assigned. Their primary responsibility shall be the enforcement of the parking rules and regulations on District property. Their secondary responsibility shall be train patrol as outlined in this order. CSO's are subject to other duties as determined by their supervisor. During parking enforcement, CSO's should strive to be highly visible in the parking lots by using vehicle lighting as appropriate. CSO's should begin parking enforcement for the day at a strategic time based on the needs of the respective stations. All available time prior to beginning parking enforcement should be devoted to high visibility patrol on trains and inside stations. After the primary parking enforcement period and completion of daily duties, CSO's will be assigned to focus on train patrols and/or high visibility parking lot patrol unless otherwise directed by their supervisor. During high visibility train and/or parking lot patrol, CSO's should be steadily "on the move" to maximize visibility. CSO's on station/train patrol shall conduct platform and station patrol checks. While conducting station checks CSO's will check the bicycle racks and make appropriate notification of issues. When on routine train patrol, CSO's shall circulate throughout the train. Exceptions will be made when boarding crowded trains. While patrolling trains, CSO's will engage in activities to increase police presence including: being alert for suspicious packages, making eye contact and engaging the public.