We can’t trust the BART Board

Pub date March 23, 2009
WriterTim Redmond
SectionPolitics Blog

So the BART Board is looking at whether BART cops should carry handguns. Nice. They don’t do too well with shotguns, either.

Seriously, what that department needs, more than anything, is civilian oversight, and if this study is about deflecting that, then it’s a worthless idea.

Assembly member Tom Ammiano has a bill that would force the BART Board to create a San Francisco-style oversight agency.

Ideally, the state Legislature wouldn’t have to spend time on this issue; the BART Board would just do it. But the BART Board is made up largely of lame, lazy hacks who have ignored this issue for years. I called Tom Radulovich, one of the few decent members of that board, and he told me he’d support the bill, but wanted it amended. “It’s too prescriptive,” he said. “We all agree on what the elements should be, but I’m not sure locking a variety of the San Francisco Office of Citizen Complaints into state law is the best idea.”

Radulovich had some suggestions — audits, ways to measure how well the system is working, etc. — which all make sense. And I’m sure there are all sorts of ways that Ammiano’s bill can be improved. But here’s the bottom line:

The final measure that comes out of Sacramento MUST be prescriptive. It must outline in very clear detail exactly what the BART Board has to do. The very fact that Ammiano is pushing this issue, and that the BART Board hasn’t already established an effective oversight plan, is all the evidence you need that it simply won’t happen without a firm state mandate.

I like the OCC model; it’s as imperfect as any government system, and a weak or compromised director and a police chief who refuses to cooperate can undermine its effectiveness. But it does the right thing, which is to take all internal affairs-type civilian complaints out of the hands of the police.

I’m sure Ammiano would be more than open to amendments, but if the BART Board members try to argue that the state should simply set broad guidelines and let them handle the details themselves, the answer is simple:

You’ve had more than 20 years to do that, and you’ve failed, and at least three people who ought to be alive today are dead because of that. No way we’re trusting you to get it right this time.