FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CPT and BSC Thank RTA for Firing Violent Officer But Must Go Further
Transit Ambassadors Needed to Replace Armed Fare Enforcement
Clevelanders for Public Transit (CPT) and BlackSpring CLE (BSC) are once again calling for an alternative to Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority transit police.
On Friday, March 5, GCRTA fired Transit Police officer Mark Sloboda. GCRTA security footage shows Sloboda assaulting a person at the West Boulevard-Cudell rapid station. Sloboda then lied to internal GCRTA investigators about the incident before RTA made the decision to terminate his employment. This was not the first time Sloboda had gotten in trouble at work. CPT and BSC thank RTA for finally firing this violent, lying officer who never should have been employed by GCRTA, let alone placed in a position of authority.
GCRTA must not replace Sloboda. Until his firing, GCRTA employed 148 transit officers including 30 fare enforcement officers. 147 transit officers is more than enough.
In Pittsburgh, the Port Authority of Allegheny County had 64 million riders in 2019, double GCRTA’s 2019 ridership of 32 million. Yet, the Port Authority’s transit police force has only 47 officers.
Between 2010 and 2017, the top stated priority of RTA transit police was to provide “Fare Enforcement, to deter fare evasion.” In 2017, Judge Emanuella Groves declared RTA’s armed fare enforcement unconstitutional. In 2018, fare evasion citations dropped over 90% to only 259 citations, down from over 3,300 in 2012. There is no reason RTA should still employ these 30 fare enforcement officers that were hired to enforce an unconstitutional proof-of-payment fare enforcement policy.
Now is the time to act. It has been over three years since the Judge Emanuella Groves ruled: “[t]here must be an intermediary between police and passengers to prevent arbitrary and abusive police encounters.”
CPT and BSC agree with Judge Groves, and demand that RTA create a transit ambassador program that does not impinge on the constitutional right of riders to “be left alone, in their private thoughts and spaces, as they travel to their destinations.”
In February 2018, CPT published the Fair Fares Platform calling for civilian transit ambassadors among other reforms to improve GCRTA. Last year, Black Spring CLE released their Abolish the Overlap Campaign calling for the removal of redundant and overlapping police forces that waste money, over police and criminalize communities and obscure accountability. The aim is to create alternatives to police beginning with our transit system and schools, and replace contact points of trauma with contact points of care.
GCRTA must use the occasion of the firing of Mark Sloboda to show it is serious about police reform by eliminating its fare enforcement unit and replacing it with civilian transit ambassadors such as other transit agencies are doing around the country.