BART’s longtime practice of relying primarily on decoy surveillance cameras inside trains appears to be unusual among major city transit agencies and prompted criticism Thursday from a Bay Area congressman who has long fought to steer federal funding to the agency to beef up security.
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But he said for security reasons, he will not reveal which cameras are actually recording.
BART police yesterday released photos of the man they believe shot and killed another passenger aboard a crowded BART train this past Saturday.
“You can tell that our system worked because of the photos that we released last night”, he said.
The suspect fled the train as some passengers frantically tried to save the shooting victim, who hasn’t been identified.
Rainey declined to say if there was surveillance camera footage of the shooting itself, saying the matter is still under investigation.
BART police circulated a bulletin with the suspect’s image to other law enforcement agencies in the days after the killing, but did not release any images publicly until Wednesday.
BART police did not elaborate in detail on the use of these decoy cameras, but Police Chief Kenton Rainey, at a press conference Wednesday, said, “If you want to give me more resources, I’ll take them”. The assailant attacked as the train stopped. In the meantime, the chief says violent crime is down by 10 percent from 2014 to 2015.
Crunican said that video cameras in the station captured good pictures of the still unidentified killer. “We know where he entered and exited the system, and we got a very clear image”.
Director Robert Raburn asked whether any counseling or chaplains had been made available to passengers who saw the slaying. That shows, Raburn said, that BART needs a crisis plan.
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“I think the benefit is that is if somebody’s going to do a minor crime, it’s going to deter them from doing that”, said the consultant, Don Cameron of Martinez. Counseling might not be practical in the station, said John McPartland, “but we do have their names as witnesses”.
