Is Metro taking big enough steps to fight crime at Park and Rides?

11:19 AM CDT on Sunday, April 24, 2005

By Jeremy Desel / 11 News

Click to watch video

Cars belonging to commuters, even a police officer, were burglarized Wednesday at Metro's Park and Ride location at Addicks on Old Katy Road.

KHOU-TV

In January Metro pulled contract security workers from all 26 Park and Ride locations.

"The camera and the stereo in my car and bust the window," said Urania Blen, theft victim.

The incident was frustrating not for one or two, but for 20 commuters Wednesday night alone.

"I try to find police or security or somebody. There was nobody around here," said Blen.

In January Metro pulled contract security workers from all 26 Park and Rides. At the time it said safety would not suffer, but the numbers are dramatic as seen in the crime reports for all Park and Rides for the first three months of the year.

There were 27 crimes reported in 2001, 48 in 2002, 63 in 2003 and 44 in 2004. With vacant security shacks, the number for 2005 jumped to 90 before 15 reports were filed Wednesday from the Addicks location.

"We said then and we will still say now that we will redeploy our resources based upon situations that take place. We clearly learned a lesson yesterday," said Chief Tom Lambert, Metro Police.

But what these numbers don't show are all the cases that don't get reported -- Five more from Wednesday alone.

Crime Stoppers will be adding signage to all lots, hoping that will help as a deterrent.

"The chances of someone turning you in just got a whole lot better," said Kim Ogg, Crime Stoppers.

And Metro is assigning 15 officers to a Park and Ride task force working to improve security. The officers will focus on trouble spots and work at all hours, but Metro will not be going back to private security.

"We believe that in the longer term technology is the right approach to take," Chief Lambert said.

Right now Metro doesn't have much technology. There are security cameras at two Park and Ride locations, one of which happens to be the Addicks location, but the cameras there don't work.

Metro is currently researching other possibilities to up their technology to help stop these problems.