The media relations officer for Metro Vancouver Transit Police said she doesn’t believe the force has enough members to patrol the area they are responsible for.
There are 184 sworn officers charged with policing 1,800 square kilometres with more than 2,000 buses. If some are on leave or vacation, that puts a squeeze on resources, said Const. Amanda Steed.
“Yes, we do deploy our officers on the buses occasionally, but you’re not going to see us every day, you’re not going to see us at every bus stop,” she told Global News on Thursday.
“Because our policing area is so large and we have so much to focus on … we deploy off crime statistics so that we know where these problems are happening and where we can deploy our officers effectively.”
The comments come in the aftermath of multiple stabbings and assaults on SkyTrain lines and buses in Metro Vancouver that have prompted the police force to ramp up their presence on transit systems.
Seventeen-year-old Ethan Bespflug was killed on a bus at 100th Avenue and King George Boulevard on Tuesday. Homicide investigators have identified a suspect but no arrests had been made as of Thursday afternoon.
Three suspects remain at large in a stabbing that left one person in the hospital at the Columbia SkyTrain station in New Westminster on Monday.
One man was arrested Sunday in connection to a series of alleged assaults on a Millennium Line train in Burnaby and an attempted knife-slashing on the street afterward.
Last week, another man was charged with attempted murder and four counts of terrorism after allegedly slashing a passenger’s throat in the name of ISIS on April 1.
Steed said the level of violence this month alone is “concerning” and she encouraged members of the public to call Metro Vancouver Transit Police if they’re feeling “scared” or want to report a crime.
“In the last 24 hours, we have deployed special units that normally focus on other things. For example, we have a targeted mobile enforcement team that generally handles impaired driving — those types of calls, enforcement type calls,” she said.
“We’ve taken them off of their day-to-day tasks and deployed them specifically onto buses and to routes of concern, so you’ll see more uniformed officers out on the road.”
She couldn’t commit to an increased police presence on buses and SkyTrain lines permanently but said the force is always “looking to improve” its deployment.
At a school opening ceremony Thursday, Premier David Eby said he has directed Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth to reach out to police and transit authorities to find out what additional resources they require to ensure public safety needs are met.
Unifor, meanwhile, the union that represents thousands of public transit workers in B.C., said it has been in touch with Transportation Minister Rob Fleming to press for more police resources for buses, ferries and SkyTrains.
“We need the riders to feel safe, we need our members to feel safe, and that means they need to put the resources they can to get the police on the buses — not just as a photo op or as a one-time thing, but on a regular and ongoing basis,” said Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor’s western regional director, on Wednesday.
“Saying we can’t afford it is like saying we have to put buses on the road without tires — it’s part of the system.”
While there are transit security officers at SkyTrain stations and on buses, Steed said their primary focus is fare enforcement and responding to the concerns of bus drivers. Those officers are not armed.
All bus drivers have access to a button in their driver’s compartment that puts them in immediate contact with their communications staff, who can then contact transit police on their behalf, she added.
“In response to the increase in crime that we’ve seen, an increase in violent attacks, I want people to know this is not the norm. This is not normal. This is something that is an anomaly,” Steed said.
“We take it very seriously and we take passengers’ safety very seriously, and we’re going to do everything that we can to not only make people feel safe, but to be safe.”
If passengers feel unsafe, she urged them not to wait for an incident to occur before exiting a bus or SkyTrain. If safety is an immediate concern, they should call 9-1-1, she said.
For anonymous police support, Metro Vancouver Transit Police can be reached by texting 87-77-77.
Transit police statistics recorded 1,572 “crimes against persons” in 2022, down from a high of 2,056 in 2016, but up from 1,376 in 2021 and 1,456 in 2020.
The force said it saw a decline in the volume of reported crimes per 100,000 transit passengers between 2021 and 2022, but noted passenger boardings were up by 45 per cent in that same period.
— with files from Global News’ Simon Little and Janet Brown
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