County Councilmembers today will discuss safety and crime issues in and around Montgomery’s 11 Metro stations, which are patrolled by both Montgomery County Police and Metro Transit Police under a concurrent jurisdiction agreement.
The joint meeting of the Council’s Public Safety and Transportation Committees will include a briefing from Metro Transit Police Deputy Chief Jeff Delinski and MCP Special Operations Division director Capt. Bob Bolesta.
According to a Council staff report, Metro Transit Police officers take primary patrol responsibility on Metro tracks, tunnels, trains and below-ground platforms, stations and facilities. Montgomery officers primarily police parking lots and surface platforms and stations.
The police officials will discuss how the two departments coordinate responses in and around stations, homeland security measures and crime trends.
Montgomery County Police report 87 total crimes at the county’s Metro stations from April 2011 to March 2013. More than a third of those were vehicle larceny or auto theft crimes and 53 happened in garages or parking lots.
Montgomery County Police didn’t handle much crime in Bethesda area stations. There was one reported aggravated assault, one vehicle larceny, one larceny pickpocket, one auto theft and two CDS arrests in that almost two-year span.
Bethesda was the third-most used Metro station in 2012 in the county, judging by average weekday boardings. Bethesda had an average of 10,8888 weekday boardings, behind Shady Grove (13,870) and Silver Spring (13,621). Medical Center had an average of 6,010 boardings, Grosvenor-Strathmore 5,862 and White Flint 4,151.
There were no reported crimes to Montgomery County Police in the two-year period at Medical Center, which doesn’t have its own parking facility. White Flint also had no reported crimes by Montgomery County Police, which reported three larceny from vehicle incidents at Grosvenor-Strathmore.
In May, Metro reported record lows in crime at its parking facilities.
