LA Metros crime started with decision not to enforce fares for the sake of equity

Every day, thousands of Angelenos take a deep breath, step out of their homes and plunge themselves into a transit experience straight out of “Mad Max.”The city’s buses have become rolling homeless shelters, replete with drugs and feces.Its trains are rolling platforms of murder and mayhem.

The transformation has been swift and stark.Between 2020 and 2025, crime in the system more than doubled.

What drove the change was LA Metro’s dedication to creating an “equitable” transit system, where all Angelenos — drug-addicted, homicidal maniacs included — could effectively ride free, without consequences.Activists and their allies in city government have spent years laser-focused on driving cops from the Metro’s buses and trains.Their argument: making people pay to use the trains is racist.In November 2016, the Labor Community Strategy Center filed a civil rights complaint claiming that LA Metro was “systematically targeting Black riders.” Black riders, they alleged, made up less than 20% of riders, but received at least half of all citations.

As a remedy, the center proposed (emphasis removed) that Metro remove all police and fare-collection staff, institute “[p]olicies of reparation” for black riders and put an “immediate end to all fare collection.” California's top news, sports and entertainment delivered to your inbox every day.Please provide a valid email.

By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.Never miss a story Less than a month later, Metro’s board of advisors unanimously demanded that Metro create a plan that would “completely decriminalize fare evasion amongst youth transit users” and ensure that youth fare evaders not be “required to interact with law enforcement.”Then, the dam broke.

Metro took over fare enforcement duties in 2017, formally removed those duties from law enforcement agencies’ contracts in 2022, and, at some po...