Metro's former chief safety officer reacts to recent violent incidents on buses, subway
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A former Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief safety officer reacted Wednesday to recent violent incidents on the agency's buses and a subway train.
On Monday, a woman identified as Mirna Soza was killed Monday at the Universal City station after being stabbed in the neck.
The suspect in the attack, 45-year-old Elliot Tramel Nowden, has now been charged with murder. Investigators said the stabbing appeared to be a completely unprovoked attack.
"The biggest thing they need to be doing is making sure that only people who are coming into the stations and riding on the system are there for the purpose of transportation. They need to increase access control," said Gina Osborn, a former FBI agent who later served as Metro's chief safety officer. Osborn was terminated from the Metro position two days after she filed a report with the agency's inspector general's office.
A number of incidents have occurred in Metro's service area over the past few weeks.
A bus driver was stabbed by a passenger in Willowbrook and in Santa Monica after a man kicked in the glass door of the bus and attacked the driver.
"Out of the 180 bus operator and rail operator attacks that took place in 2023, less than 30% of those were actually filed with the DA's office or the city attorney's office," said Osborn.
Metro says its most recent numbers show what are described as crimes against society down 40%. That's because of arrests for trespassing, drugs and weapons, but crimes against persons went up 7.8% compared to January, the agency said.
According to Metro, there is additional security.
"As an update specific to bus operators, between transit security officers, law enforcement partners and ambassadors there are more than 80 people dedicated to riding buses each day," the agency said in a statement. "We will see further expansion of these teams in the coming months."
Several agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, patrol the system. Osborn feels it needs to have its own dedicated force.
"I think by having their own police department, by having their own transit public safety department, they can be hiring law-enforcement people, law-enforcement officers to be on the system to be engaged and not necessarily just respond to crimes, but also be part of that transit community," Osborn said.
Metro says the agency will consider the matter of authorizing an in-house public safety department this coming spring.
