Kevin P. Casey
Roland Gervacio patrols Route 358 during a Metro police "emphasis."
Related Content
More About
Perhaps I've just been unlucky, but in less than a month, I've already accumulated more nasty encounters with threatening people on the bus in Seattle thanI did in the almost five years I spent in Washington, D.C., where I also used public transportation.
There was the guy last Saturday on the No. 15 who accosted one woman after another. I could smell the booze on him from 10 rows away. "Hey, pretty lady," he leered. The woman pulled up her shoulders and avoided his gaze.
He moved over to another woman trying to hide behind a foldout city map. "You're terrified, aren't you?" he said. She shrugged and managed a nervous smile.
When the driver, who had been watching in the rearview mirror, asked where he was going, the man rushed the cockpit and screamed, "I'm not going anywhere!"
"You're making me uncomfortable," the driver said.
"Fuck your mother!" the man shouted. "You can't throw me off!"
He eventually did get off when a man in the back stood up and threatened to kick his ass if he didn't.
Then there was the guy screaming an unbroken string of profanities out of a back window to a woman on the street, forcing all the passengers to huddle at the front half of the bus. Another night, a guy cornered a stranger into a one-sided conversation loud enough for everyone to hear about the women he'd fucked, dudes he'd fought, times he'd been stabbed, and guns he used to carry. Between breaths, he gulped brown liquid from a 7-Up bottle.
In each instance, I expected the driver would call the police, who would appear at the next stop, board the bus, and take care of the problem. But that didn't happen. Instead, we all—except for that brave man on the No. 15—just waited for the problem to disappear.
When there are minor infractions of the Metro passenger code of conduct (which states that passengers must, among other things, pay the right fare, respect other passengers' privacy, not drink alcoholic beverages, and not harass anyone), drivers should continue on the route rather than inconvenience other riders by delaying service, according to Metro's Web site. After all, people have places to go, and drivers have schedules to keep. Drivers are to be "peacekeepers, not enforcers." But it also says, "Enforcement of the code of conduct is handled through a network of professionals that can be called upon by the bus driver, if and when needed."
So where are these professionals, and why have I never seen them spring into action?
According to Metro Transit Police Sgt. Lonnie Arnold, there are a grand total of 44 officers—all deputies contracted from the King County Sheriff's Office—tasked with policing all of Metro's King County bus routes (1,100 Metro busses are in operation during any given weekday rush hour), in addition to shelters, transit stations, and park and rides. The Seattle Police Department also answers calls for service within city limits, but has no dedicated officers for Metro routes. Only about 36 officers actually patrol and answer calls for service; six of them are plainclothes and undercover.
In order to see exactly what it takes to get thrown off a bus in this town, I went along with these undercover transit cops one night earlier this month on an "emphasis"—a regular flooding of a problem route. This time, it was Route 358, running along Aurora Avenue, which consistently lands in Metro's top five routes for number of "incidents" reported by drivers. During an "emphasis," uniformed patrol officers follow the buses; bicycle officers and SWAT team members are posted at bus stops; and two teams of undercover officers are dispatched to play passenger.
The team I'm with consists of Roland Gervacio, 31, Woody Garrison, 51, and Donn Potteiger, 56. Armed with .40-caliber Glocks, pepper spray, Tasers, and a stack of comment cards for drivers to rate their police work, they pile into a van and head for the Aurora Transit Center at North 200th Street. Metro drivers file about 5,000 incident reports each year, and the most common complaints are driver assaults, harassment, drinking, vandalism, and nonspecific "rowdy" behavior. Technically, police can order passengers off the bus for being too smelly or for disturbing others, but Garrison says the prosecutor's office has told them not to bother filing charges.
At 6:26 p.m., the van reaches the transit center, and Gervacio and Garrison jump out to catch a southbound 358. A few stops into the ride, a man wearing a Real Change identification card boards. As he walks by, his stench makes Gervacio flinch. "I don't think that guy back there belongs on the bus," Gervacio says. "He's a known problem, and he always stinks, too. That's how I recognized him."
Gervacio confers with Garrison and then calls in to check the man's background. Indeed, the man has been arrested twice for fighting and is barred from the bus until 2008. (When police issue a citation for a civil or criminal infraction on Metro property, they can also suspend riding privileges. In 2006, police issued 1,480 suspensions.)
Gervacio heads to the back of the bus. "Hey, you Grady Forest?" he asks.
