Mark Segraves, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – Metro has once again made it a bit easier to find out about crime in the transit system by resuming publishing a monthly crime blotter.
The report had disappeared from Metro’s website last year because of internal challenges in gathering and posting the information, according to Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel.
“There was a break in posting that information because the way it was done in the past was quite labor intensive and not feasible at the time,” Stessel wrote in an email. “We have now resumed.”
The information posted is for the previous month and is published in a .pdf file. That means users cannot electronically search for crime statistics for a specific location or time frame, like they can on the Metropolitan Police Department’s website.
The February 2012 report lists 713 incidents in chronological order.
The most commonly reported offense is for failing to pay the fare, but robbery reports and arrests also top the list with 100 separate incidents.
TBD On Foot, a local transportation blog that first reported the return of the crime blotter, hailed the development as a “small victory for transparency.”
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(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
