T police stop citing riders who evade fares

Authority calls inaction dereliction of duty; Officers say they should focus on violent crime

Disgruntled MBTA police officers, who have routinely issued more than 100 citations for fare evasion a month, have not issued a single ticket in May and wrote only seven in April, prompting the T's top brass to accuse them of dereliction of duty.

"They have an oath to uphold, to enforce the law," T general manager Daniel A. Grabauskas said yesterday. "And if they're not, they're in violation of their own code of honor."

Grabauskas said he has asked the acting T police chief, Paul MacMillan, to investigate the sudden drop-off in tickets, which was revealed in records obtained by the Globe through a freedom of information request. If MacMillan determines that officers are not enforcing the law, he said, "disciplinary action will follow."

MacMillan, clearly frustrated by his officers' inaction on the job, said yesterday that issuing citations to people who jump fare gates is one of his agency's core missions. But Robert Marino, the president of the T police union, said that many officers believe that they should be focusing more on perpetrators of violent crimes, not scofflaws.

"This is all over $1.75 or $2 as opposed to someone being sexually assaulted," Marino said.

The near halt in ticketing could hardly come at a worse time for the beleaguered transit agency, which is struggling with high debt and rising fuel prices. The T loses between $11 million and $19 million to fare evasion each year - an estimated 3 to 5 percent of its total fare revenue. Each ticketed evader must pay a $25 penalty. The latest fare increases went into effect in January, and public transit advocates have warned that the T could be forced to raise fares again or cut service if the state does not offer a bailout.

Grabauskas, who has ruled out a fare increase through at least 2009, said stopping fare evasion is not only a matter of financial security for the T; it also affects safety for commuters. One of the ways the T reduced violent crime to a 10-year-low last year, he said, was by cracking down on riders who sneaked through the gates or smoked on the platforms, which created a broader sense of law and order on the transit system.

"The theory is you don't let the little things go by," Grabauskas said. "You enforce those, too."

T records show that, before last month, transit police were enforcing the "little things." They ticketed 403 fare evaders in the first five months of last year, including 105 evaders in April 2007 and 175 in May 2007. This year, they were on pace to write more tickets through the first three months of the year.

Then came an emotional meeting of the MBTA Police Patrolman's Association on March 30, when officers railed against the fare-evasion work.

Officers said it is a potentially dangerous assignment because they patrol gates in plain clothes, which they say leads to confrontations with evaders who think they are being stopped by another commuter. The civilian clothes also give them no place to hide their batons, which Marino said is a violation of department rules.

Marino said many of those complaining were 20-year veterans whose opinions influenced younger officers.

Marino said there was no formal agreement at the meeting to stop issuing tickets, but afterward, many officers probably decided to let evaders go with just a warning, not a ticket. The numbers suggest that this has become the de facto policy on the T: In the eight weeks since the meeting, officers have issued just seven tickets.

"People's eyes were opened a little bit as far as some of the issues that were bothering some people," Marino said. "And what you're seeing right now is basically a result of that."

Marino said he recognizes that officers must uphold the law, and said police commanders are working behind the scenes to address some of the union's concerns.

Grabauskas did not sound keen to wait for a resolution.

"You don't get to pick and choose what laws you enforce," he said. "You enforce them all."

Michael Levenson can be reached at mlevenson@globe.com.