Crime on L.A.

trains, buses rises as riders return: 'Poor

people are suffering the most'
Brittny Mejia
Sun, November 28, 2021, 8:00 AM · 9 min read

A commuter waits at Pershing Square station Nov. 16 in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

As she waited for a Metro train in Hollywood, Maritza Mancilla shielded herself behind the escalator bringing
passengers down into the fluorescent lit underground.

She wanted to see the newcomers before they could see her.

The 55-year-old, who relies on public transportation to get to her job as a house cleaner, has seen fights break
out on the train. She’s seen a man attempt to open the car doors while they were in motion. At the
Hollywood/Western Metro station earlier this year, a man exposed himself to her.

"If I could work from home, I would," she said.

With the pandemic easing and lockdowns lifted, a return to normalcy has come with benefits: increased
economic activity, more people going back to work and school and holiday gatherings and social interactions.

But on the Los Angeles public transit system — where ridership has rebounded to about 843,000 weekday daily
riders from a pandemic low of about 363,800 — normal has also brought with it a rise in crime.

In 2021, through September, reports of violent crimes were up 25% from the same time last year and 9% from
2019, according to L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority data. Some crimes, such as aggravated
assaults, are exceeding pre-pandemic levels even though bus and rail ridership hasn’t fully recovered.

Although still rare, homicides jumped from one in 2019, to three in 2020, the first full year of the pandemic. So
far in 2021, five people have been killed in stations or on public transport, including a 28-year-old woman fatally
shot on the train while on her way to work.