The Regional Transportation District’s police chief is on unspecified depart this month amid efforts to extend security for riders as violence and unlawful drug use unfold onto buses and trains.
RTD Board Chairman Erik Davidson responded to questions from JHB on Thursday, confirming in a textual content message that “Chief Joel Fitzgerald is on depart, efficient July 1.”
Davidson didn’t remark additional and RTD communications officers declined to offer particulars or an evidence.
RTD Board Director Doug Tisdale, who additionally serves on the American Public Transportation Affiliation board, mentioned ramping up police safety for RTD riders will proceed.
“Any points that could be related to our chief of police don’t impair or impede our plans to proceed to reinforce and supply higher safety alongside your complete RTD system, together with the continued employment of further law enforcement officials,” Tisdale mentioned in an e-mail.
RTD is struggling to comprise societal violence spilling into public transit areas that after have been safer. Information obtained from the company by way of Colorado Open Data Act requests confirmed passengers on RTD’s buses and trains usually have been assaulted and threatened during the last three years and that RTD drivers have been assaulted greater than 100 instances a yr on common since 2019.
The violence has spurred RTD’s administrators to double their police power towards a goal of 119 officers by the top of this yr. They’ve ramped up armed patrols and put in protecting limitations between drivers and passengers.
CBS Colorado first reported that Fitzgerald was positioned on depart, citing an inside memo and referring to an out of doors investigation of alleged “coverage violations.”
Employed in August 2022 as RTD’s chief of police and emergency administration, Fitzgerald has taken main duty for bettering rider security throughout eight counties, a 2,342-square-mile service space that ranks among the many largest within the nation.
Beforehand, Fitzgerald served as a police chief in 4 U.S. cities. He labored in varied capacities for 17 years within the Philadelphia Police Division and holds a doctorate in enterprise administration. He has described himself as “an individual of integrity” who units expectations excessive “for interactions with folks” to not solely beat crime but in addition construct legitimacy and belief.
He has championed a “agency compassion” strategy to policing.
RTD officers have watched public transit ridership in metro Denver lower from 105.8 million boardings in 2019 to 65.2 million in 2023. Transit companies nationwide have been wrestling with violence and drug use.
An RTD desk in an company doc reveals that, through the first half of 2023, transit law enforcement officials made a mean of 36 arrests a month, and that they responded to a month-to-month common of 60 assaults, 486 disturbances, 1,206 drug-related incidents, 389 trespasses and 58 situations of vandalism.
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