Public Transportation Users Seek Alternatives For Transit Police

CLEVELAND — Local residents concerned about the presence of transit police used as part of Cleveland’s public transportation system continue to seek alternatives to Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority employees that commuters say often harass riders, especially people of color.

Local advocacy groups have been pushing for replacement for transit police, which community organizers said during a virtual town hall meeting Thursday night do not always equate to the guarantee of public safety, advocates from two community groups announced in a news release Friday.

Instead, participants in Thursday's meeting maintained that city-paid transit police officers often harass and target people of color and riders coming from low-income areas or those who are homeless, the release said. According to organizers from Clevelanders for Public Transit and Black Spring CLE, representatives from GCRTA were invited to participate in the town hall but did not do so.

“It speaks volumes about how they feel about this issue and a possible resolution,” Brittney Madison, chairperson for CPT’s policy committee said in the news release.

An email sent to a GCRTA spokeswoman seeking comment on the group's claims was not immediately returned on Friday.

Among the participants in Thursday’s town hall was Cleveland Municipal Judge Emanuella Groves, who, in 2017, ruled that RTA’s policy of using armed police to conduct fare enforcement is unconstitutional.

Since then, community organizers have been seeking an alternative for the traffic police, which, according to the CPT group news release, said the city continues to spend more than $14 million for each year over a span when fares have doubled and public transportation services have been cut by 25 percent, the group said in the release.

According to the release, GCRTA uses HealthLine operators to check fares, which organizers say causes delays and less-reliable service over the past three years, as well as a massive drop in reported crimes of “misconduct” (fare evasion), from over 5,000 cases in 2017 to just 259 cases in 2018.

In some cases, participants in the town hall spoke of instances they either witnessed or were part of in which transit police overstepped their bounds in fare enforcement. Joe Gaston, a public transportation user, said he was targeted by transit police after he said during the meeting that he fell asleep while waiting for a train. Gaston said he was eventually charged with criminal trespass even though he said he had a fare card.

“I woke up with four transit police officers standing around me,” Gaston said during Thursday's meeting. “I became a target to them, I fit the profile of a low-income person.”

According to the release, charges against Gaston were dropped before the start of his scheduled trial, which brought mixed feelings for the local resident.

“I was happy but I was also disappointed," Gaston said, according to the news release. "I felt what they were doing to me was unconstitutional. I wanted the court to issue a ruling to bar the police from continuing to do this kind of stuff. They take advantage of the powerless.”