Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story contained the description of an alleged attack upon a MARTA passenger that has since been retracted by the passenger.
An apparent gang attack on two MARTA train passengers last weekend dealt a fresh blow to the transit agency’s image and has prompted a key state legislator to call a hearing on how it protects passengers.
“It is almost like all the progress that was made in promoting an image of MARTA as a safe system and easy to use is overshadowed,” said Ashley Robbins, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit, of the attack on two Delta Air Lines employees riding to work.
“These sort of things, particularly because they don’t happen that frequently, stick in people’s minds.”
State Rep. Mike Jacobs, R-Atlanta, chairman of a panel that oversees MARTA, said Friday he’s summoning system officials to a May 3 public hearing to explain how MARTA’s 309-officer police force uses its resources. His committee will also take public comment.
The scrutiny comes after a decade in which total crimes within MARTA’s system -- trains, buses and stations -- declined, according to crime statistics.
Yet the past year has seen a handful of high-profile incidents. For instance, in March 2010 a Jonesboro teen was shot to death at the East Point station while resisting an attempt to steal his cellphone. Just minutes into 2011, a man killed a 14-year-old boy by cutting his throat in the Five Points station. Arrests were made in both cases.
This past weekend, the two Delta workers were riding to the airport just after midnight when, during a stop at the Garnett Street station downtown, a group of youths chanting gang initials entered their rail car and attacked and robbed them, according to witness accounts in a MARTA police report. The youths left the car two stations later, and no one has been arrested although MARTA says it has identified “persons of interest.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed more than a dozen regular MARTA riders, several of whom said they had been a victim or seen a crime. Some take a philosophical view, saying MARTA is no more or less prone to crime than anywhere.
But their common refrain was that the system needs a larger, more obvious police presence.
“I think they need more police, especially at night -- you hardly see any at night,” said Curtis Williams, 36, who works for a downtown hotel, while awaiting a train at the Brookhaven station. “You see more of them in the daytime in a group talking.”
MARTA didn’t make officials available for interviews, and it divulges few details about anti-crime strategies.
Spokesman Lyle Harris said officers randomly patrol trains and focus manpower on crime trends. He said statistics validate the approach. Numbers reported to the FBI show serious crimes and larcenies trending down from 877 in fiscal 2000 to 418 in fiscal 2010. However, last year’s trend line still showed an uptick in crime for each quarter, going from a rate of 2.54 per million riders to 3.69.
Most were on trains or in train stations, with the bulk of the rest in MARTA parking lots. Larcenies -- usually snatch-and-grabs -- make up most the crime while rape and homicides remain rare, with one each reported in 2010.
The biggest drop over the past decade was in auto thefts, which tumbled from 216 in 2000 to 57 in 2010 and larcenies, which dropped from 493 to 218. There were 67 aggravated assaults and 61 robberies in fiscal 2010, and those numbers have been relatively constant over the past decade.
Transit officials noted that neither victim in last weekend’s incident was seriously hurt and contend it is unfair to conclude that the transit system, which carries 142,000 people a day, is unsafe.
“MARTA has always taken extraordinary steps to make sure our customers are safe, and will continue to do so,” an agency statement said. “But MARTA is a part of a larger metropolitan region where crime occurs more frequently that any of us like, or would like to admit.”
Former passenger Brandt Ross, a Buckhead resident, said he never witnessed a crime on the system but saw panhandlers hassling riders, and he said police presence was minimal.
“I quit riding because coming back from the ballpark, especially late at night, it just wasn’t a comfortable feeling,” said Ross, 74.
Jacobs, the legislator convening next month’s hearing, said he has an open mind as to whether the system takes adequate steps to protect customers. His committee needs information to make that assessment, he said.
But Jacobs said the issue could affect the regional mass transit reform the Legislature plans to undertake next year. If lawmakers permanently lift restrictions on how MARTA spends its money, they may want assurances it has adequate police protection in place, he said.
“As a citizen who uses MARTA, I view it as important to see police officers deployed where it matters most. On trains is a good starting point,” Jacobs said. “Anecdotally, I think there is a feeling that you used to see more officers on trains and now you see fewer officers on trains, but we’ll only be able to determine that by inquiring into the facts.”
Other riders said it is unfair to criticize MARTA police.
Freddy Thomas, 55, said he once saw a MARTA policeman disarm a knife wielding man at the Five Points station. T.C. Wright, a 77-year-old who uses MARTA to commute between his home near Mozley Park in west Atlanta and shopping near Inman Park in east Atlanta, said crime is spread out through society.
“You’re not safe in your home, now,” he said.
Longtime rider Nancy Valentine, of Fayetteville, said she sees officers regularly, especially at the College Park station, where one of the system’s four police precincts is located. She said she knows plainsclothes officers who ride the trains.
Valentine, 51, who commutes to a job in Midtown, said a man once snatched her Blackberry and ran off but MARTA identified him through its camera system and arrested him in a week.
Still, she said, ““I do think if (police) they had a more visible presence, it would be comforting to a lot of people,” she said.
Staff writer Ariel Hart contributed to this story
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