Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, whose police officers have been deployed on the CTA for several months, said Wednesday that a dedicated police force should be responsible for law enforcement on public transit. 

Sheriff’s police have been deployed on the CTA since the spring, when the mass transit agency beefed up law enforcement staffing at the behest of the federal government. About 50 sworn officers work the transit system a day, the sheriff’s office said this week.

Dart’s office is also leading a law enforcement task force mandated by the state’s landmark transit funding and reform legislation, which took effect at the beginning of June. The law is expected to raise more than $1 billion for public transit annually and creates the new Northern Illinois Transit Authority to govern the CTA, Metra and Pace. NITA, as it will be called, is expected to be a more powerful version of the existing Regional Transportation Authority.

One provision of the law: The task force led by the sheriff’s office must create a report of recommendations regarding law enforcement strategies on transit and “make recommendations” to be used “in implementing a sworn law enforcement officer crime prevention program” on mass transit. 

Later, NITA will vote on implementing such a program, the law says. 

In an interview with the Tribune as part of a media blitz this week, Dart signaled his support for a dedicated law enforcement agency for mass transit that would be paid for with new transit funding, although he acknowledged a number of options were on the table. 

“Whatever ends up being our final plan, it has to have one person that is ultimately responsible,” he said, describing the current system as “bifurcated.” 

Currently, law enforcement on the CTA includes a combination of members of the Chicago Police Department’s mass transit units, CPD officers that volunteer to work overtime on the system, privately contracted security and the sheriff’s police. Unlike the CTA, commuter rail system Metra has its own police department. 

“You have to have a dedicated force to do this,” Dart told the Tribune. “Doing this through overtime and things like that, that’s not a plan,” he said. 

He suggested his task force would ultimately present members of the new NITA board — who have not yet been seated — with several options for policing. One option could be a “full brand-new department,” whereas another possible option could be a hybrid structure, Dart suggested. 

“It’s not just going to be dictator Tom saying, this is what we’re doing here,” he said. “But I don’t know how this could work without a dedicated policing,” he said. 

It’s not entirely clear who would lead such a police force, how it would be structured or what the role of existing law enforcement agencies would be within it. 

In reference to Metra’s existing police force, Dart said, “it doesn’t mean they necessarily go away at all … They probably just switch from being Metra police to NITA police.” 

Dart acknowledged opposition to a proposed dedicated police unit would likely be fiscal in nature. 

A significant chunk of new transit funds this year are slated to be spent on beefing up law enforcement. The police spending has raised some eyebrows from transit advocates who would have liked to see more of the new money going to increased frequency of trains and buses. 

The soon-to-be-defunct RTA has defended the spending plan, saying safety is high on transit riders’ list of concerns. Dart echoed that perspective.

Local law enforcement have touted recent decreases in crime on the CTA in particular, which beefed up security staffing in December and again in March. Year-over-year, FBI-classified serious crimes are down nearly 29% on the portion of the CTA within city limits, according to Chicago police data. 

Dart’s office said it has made 225 mass transit arrests since late March, a period during which it has issued more than 1,500 warnings for rule violations like smoking, playing loud music, or passing between train cars. Dart noted his office has also been focused on reducing fare evasion. 

Asked whether the sheriff’s police was focused more on serious violent crime or quality-of-life issues like smoking, Dart said, “It’s really both.”

“It has an element of that broken-windows theory,” he said. “Where if you take care of the little things, the other things come with it. There’s a strong element of that, there really is.” 

On a transit ride-along with sheriff’s police officers midday Wednesday, the Tribune observed sheriff’s police officers detain and handcuff a man whom an officer said had vaped on the California Green Line train platform. 

Police searched his backpack on the platform and ran his ID to check for warrants before uncuffing him and letting him go with a warning. In response to a question from the Tribune, sheriff’s office spokesperson Matt Walberg said it was standard procedure for officers to handcuff someone who is being detained to protect officers’ safety.

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