OAKLAND — BART Police Chief Ed Alvarez will retire subsequent month, ending greater than a quarter-century with the division and his final 4 years as its prime cop.
When Alvarez steps down on Could 1, BART Police Deputy Chief Kevin Franklin will function interim chief. Franklin, who serves because the police division’s operations chief, beforehand managed its safety operations from 2011 to 2018 and labored as an teacher in lots of division coaching applications.
Alvarez, who served as interim chief in April 2019 earlier than taking the job in January 2020, expressed his appreciation for the division’s efforts.
“It’s been the best honor of my profession to guide the individuals of the BART Police Division for the final 4 years as we’ve welcomed the Bay Space again to transit within the wake of the pandemic,” he stated in an announcement.
“I’m happy with all of the work we’ve finished as we’ve strived collectively to make BART PD one of the crucial progressive and community-oriented police departments within the nation.”
A BART assertion Wednesday touted a number of police division reforms beneath Alvarez’s tenure, together with voluntary cooperation with the Middle for Policing Fairness to evaluation and analyze division practices, in addition to full staffing on the division’s crisis-intervention specialist staff and rollout of an unarmed “ambassador” security staff to attach riders in want with social providers. The division additionally banned the usage of carotid management holds and eliminated the controversial “excited delirium” time period from the division’s coverage handbook whereas Alvarez was chief.
In feedback Wednesday, BART Board Director Debora Allen stated Alvarez reached out to let her know of his transfer shortly earlier than the announcement.
“It’s actually been a troublesome three, virtually 4 years. However, it didn't shock me,” Allen stated. “Police chiefs sometimes common one thing like three to 5 years on this space. It’s a troublesome job and it’s been way more troublesome over these final three years because the pandemic, notably for BART as we have now confronted so many struggles with funding and making an attempt to get riders again.”
The division labored to deal with many ongoing challenges, together with posting extra officers at stations and backfilling a staffing hole that has continued to this present day, with at the least two dozen officer slots remaining open, Allen stated. Different points that hit the division laborious included information exhibiting racial disparities in who BART officers used drive towards, quality-of-life quotation enforcement charges and a ransomware assault earlier this yr.
Contact George Kelly at 408-859-5180.