In an effort to prevent passengers from carrying handguns and knives onto its trains, LA Metro is testing a concealed weapons detection system at Union Station billed as added protection for rider safety, the agency reported on Wednesday, Oct. 23
The pilot program is part of a beefed up security protocol prompted by a spate of violent attacks since April that has plagued the county’s transit system. They included three murders and a huge spike in arrests of people carrying weapons onto the system.
“It is adding another layer looking at this societal challenge we have and finding ways to combat that,” summed up Robert Gummer, LA Metro deputy chief of system security and law enforcement.
In the last year, Metro reported 152 arrests for patrons with concealed weapons or brandishing weapons on the transit system. That represents a doubling of weapons-related arrests, Gummer said.
The Metro board voted in July to begin testing weapons detection systems.
This came after the fatal stabbing of 66-year-old Mirna Soza Arauz at 5 a.m. April 22 in an unprovoked attack on the B (Red) Line train at the Universal City Station in Studio City. Soza Arauz boarded the train in North Hollywood and was heading home from her job as a security guard at a North Hills restaurant. She managed to get off the train at the Universal City Station on the 3900 block of Lankershim Boulevard where she was found mortally wounded on the platform.
Two major incidents on Metro buses also prompted calls for more security.
Juan Luis Gomez-Ramirez, a teacher visiting from Mexico who was traveling on a Line 108 bus in Commerce was shot to death in the back of the head in an unprovoked attack in May. Four months later, a bus was hijacked on Sept. 25 in downtown Los Angeles by a gunman who killed a passenger.
Buses do not have the wavelength and infrastructure to make a video detection system operable, Gummer said. “We are working with vendors who claim they have solutions.”
The effort to install metal detectors at train stations was led by L.A. County Supervisor and Metro board chair Janice Hahn, who demanded Metro prevent people from carrying weapons onto the system. Board members recently toured new stadiums in Inglewood that use these advanced systems. This effort was spearheaded by Inglewood Mayor and Metro board member James Butts, Jr.
“This pilot (program) is a great first step and I look forward to expanding our use of weapons detection technology across our system,” said Hahn, who tested out the system at Union Station on Wednesday.
Metro has already tested Millimeter Wave Technology in which high-frequency radio waves are bounced off the body of random passengers to detect anyone brandishing weapons such as a knife or a gun, Gummer said. These systems can be integrated into the closed circuit TV cameras already at train station platforms and monitored by security teams and don’t require walking through detection towers.
On Wednesday, Metro demonstrated a second kind of weapons detection system that uses advanced sensors to detect weapons as people walk through metal detection towers, according to a Metro report.
“We feel exploring these technologies is the first logical step in improving safety on our system,” Gummer said. “We are looking at what kind of systems make sense.”
LA Metro is diverting some passengers to go between two metal detection towers at the easterly platform to the busy B/D subway lines. The system can divert five,10 or more passengers at a time, a number that is set so as not to cause lines and make people miss their trains, Gummer reported.
The testing will continue at Union Station through December, Metro reported.
This is the first metal detection system ever deployed on train platforms at the 85-year-old transit hub in downtown Los Angeles.
A monitor captures the image of a passenger on Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024, during a demonstration of a new weapons detection system being tested at the entrance to the B and D Metro train lines at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. (Photo by Howard Freshman, Contributing Photographer)
At a demonstration on Wednesday, a person walked between the metal pillars which sent an image to a portable tablet that showed a man in a blue blazer. A red 3-D box surrounded the area where there could be a weapon, namely in a pocket or hand.
“It directs that screener to areas where that person could be searched,” Gummer explained.
If the screeners viewing the image think there may be a weapon, that person will be checked out by Metro’s transit security officers. “They will have a look inside their bags or anything that seems to hit off as a possible concealed weapon,” Gummer said.
If the security officers find a sharp-edged weapon such as a knife or a handgun, they would send that person for further screening, most likely to a law enforcement officer, to determine if the patron is authorized to carry a weapon.
Gummer emphasized two goals with this system.
“We are ensuring that we are not adversely impacting a rider’s ride. But also, we’re layering ways where passengers feel we are improving safety on the system,” he said.
Awaiting for the B (Red) Line train just down the escalator from the testing site, Tiya Sangjan, who lives in Santa Clarita and is from Thailand, welcomed metal detection systems on LA Metro train platforms. But Sangjan said the system is only as good as the human security personnel assigned to monitor it.
At a shopping mall in Thailand a man got around a metal detector and shot and killed someone, she said. “They didn’t pay attention to him,” she said.
Also waiting on the train platform was John Song of Ontario. On weekdays, he takes the Metrolink heavy-rail train to Union Station, then jumps on the Metro B or D line to Western and Wilshire, where he catches a bus to his workplace, he said.
Song was cautious about not praising metal detection systems as a panacea, saying more Metro security and law enforcement officers are needed to pair with the technology.
Would he feel safer with metal detection machines?
“Yes, if they have it all the time. It should be consistent, like all day,” he said.
Song said he does not feel safe on Metro trains and buses today because of transients with mental illnesses who often ride for free and yell or become violent. “There are too many crazy people all the time and I don’t see any cops. They (police or sheriff deputies) should be at every station and on every train.”
The agency is testing various metal detection systems on train platforms. “We are looking at what kinds of systems make sense,” Gummer said. “We are seeing what works and studying the impacts. Then we will bring it to the board with a recommendation.”
Related links
LA Metro pursues AI video, weapon scanning, after the fatal stabbing of a mom
Metro adopts metal detectors, taller fare gate exits, more tap-to-exit stations
Amid crime concerns, LA Metro continues testing weapons detection, installing bus-driver barriers
Chair of LA Metro wants more police on buses and trains after hijack and death
LA Metro beefing up police patrols, ‘hardening’ stations to stop rise in violence