It started as an idea: What if LA Metro had its own police department to better reduce crime?
That notion grew out of frustration with coverage from LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department patrolling buses and trains, with critics and board members saying officers didn’t actually ride, but stood at stations and depots or stayed in patrol cars. Also, Metro could not direct their coverage.
Board members and others have said LAPD officers assigned to transit duty did so mostly for the overtime pay. Establishing a dedicated public safety force will give the agency more control over how to deploy patrols, Metro officials said.
Then, in June 2024, the transportation agency’s board of directors voted to form its own force. On May 28, almost two years later, the effort got off to a surprisingly strong start. In the first 24 hours of recruitment, LA Metro had received 950 applications, Metro reported last week.
“We are excited to mark this important milestone as we begin this critical phase of building out Metro’s own Department of Public Safety (DPS),” said CEO Stephanie Wiggins.
As of June 11, that number had increased to 2,468 applicants, said William Scott, the former San Francisco PD chief of police who was hired to head LA Metro’s DPS a year ago.
The number of future recruits is high, especially since LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department are fraught with openings and increasingly push hard for new applicants.
“I thought we would get some traction,” said Scott on Thursday, June 11. “But that was beyond our expectations — in a good way.”
With Scott intending to hire a maximum of 630 sworn officers to fill out his new force, that’s four times as many applicants received than needed. And recruitment is only two weeks underway and he expects more applications.
One reason for the avalanche of applications could be the competitive salary.
An entry level, LA Metro police officer would earn up to $132,499 per year. A lateral police officer who brings law enforcement experience would earn up to $142,521 per year, the LA Metro applications website https://www.joinmetrodps.com/ says.
For comparison, an entry-level LAPD officer would earn between $86,192 and $91,224, according to the joinlapd.com website.
Scott said there are many other reasons the job of LA Metro police officer is attracting a record number of applicants.
“We offer something different. Transit policing is a different type of policing,” he said. “It is still police work but its catered to the Metro system.” Metro runs throughout L.A. County, covering 1,447 square miles, carries nearly 1 million boardings daily on a fleet of 2,200 buses and six rail lines.
The first hires, especially those lateral officers, can train the newer officers and help what Scott says is establishing the culture of the department. “You get the ability to start a department from the ground up; that is rare. It’s a chance at building a legacy,” he said.
He has glanced at applications and talked to some applicants. Many come from other police departments, he said. Also, he’s received applications from 500 Metro employees. These include bus operators who’ve applied, he said. Others come from Metro’s security department who want to become full-fledged peace officers, he said.
“We are looking for people with the right set of values, who believe in what we are trying to do here,” said Scott. “It’s all about keeping our riders and employees safe. And you’ve got to treat people the right way.”
He hopes to hire 60 sworn officers by December. Then another 60 in the next six months after that. He’s aiming for 120 officers hired in a year.
Deployment will be gradual, done in phases, he said.
As DPS officers enter the system, LAPD and Sheriff deputies would be replaced. Eventually, DPS will have 630 sworn officers on the system by 2031 or sooner, completely eliminating the contracts with the two law enforcement entities, Scott said.
The LA Metro DPS will be larger than the transit police associated with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), who number about 350, he said.
LA Metro will join other transit agencies that have their own police force, including BART and Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA). Other cities had transit police departments established more than 40 years ago, including those in Boston, Baltimore, Houston and Atlanta, Metro reported.
The issue of cost has swirled around the creation of an in-house police force at LA Metro.
A Metro report released in June 2023 said the in-house department would cost 22% less than hiring outside law enforcement and would cost $135.4 million a year. But that report was based on about 300 DPS officers. Since Scott was hired, that number has doubled.
A year later, when the LA Metro board approved starting the DPS, it was estimated to cost $192.6 million per year, slightly less than the contracts for law enforcement that year, said Maya Pogoda, LA Metro spokesperson, in an email.
The contracting cost for law enforcement in the 2026-2027 budget is $209.5 million, out of a total budget of $9.7 billion. About $430 million is allocated for public safety, that includes the LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff contracts, plus Care-Based Services ($87.6 million) that takes in the Metro Ambassadors, Homeless Outreach Management teams, Community Intervention Specialists (CIS) and Crisis Response Program; Metro Transit Security ($80 million) and private security contracts ($47.1 million).
Scott could not pinpoint the operating cost of a fully established DPS in the future, saying only that it would be cheaper than contracting with LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.
So far, start-up costs in 2025-2026 were $5.1 million, with $5.8 million slotted for 2025-2027, for a total of $10.9 million. That doesn’t include the cost of salaries since the department is not yet operating. Instead, it is mostly for recruiting, patrol cars and equipment.
Sheriff Robert Luna criticized the Metro numbers in its initial report, saying the agency did not account for $170.5 million in start-up, pensions, liability and logistics such as lockers and holding cells. He put the operating cost at $227.5 million annually, saying any cost savings from an in-house department would be non-existent.
“When all is said and done, the goal is to be less expensive than the current model,” Scott said.
A main reason for going in house cited by Scott, board members and Wiggins is to have a dedicated department just for the transit system. Wiggins has said the system keeps growing, with extension of rail lines and soon-to-be-completed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lines, making the old way fragmented and outdated.
“When we have our own sworn officers we get to assign them. We will have total control,” Scott said.
Besides law enforcement training, all DPS officers will be given focused training on the rail and bus lines. The DPS will work with the care-based services often in groups that include an officer, a mental health/substance abuse specialist, a homeless placement worker and crisis team member. The DPS officer will check to see if a rider has paid their fare and also respond to violent incidents.
“We have over 300 Ambassadors under DPS,” he said. The green-shirt wearing ambassadors carry cell phones but no weapons, calling for help when needed and directing riders to their train or bus. “We also have our homeless outreach teams. We want all of these parts to work together,” he said.
“To make all this work in sync is a little harder to do when you have different entities doing the work,” he said, adding that sheriff deputies and LAPD officers have to answer to their own commanders or jump to other calls outside the system.
Scott takes the concept of community policing to the mass transit world. The community is the riders going to and from work or an entertainment venue. Often, DPS officers will get familiar with riders patterns and even get to know the riders themselves, he said.
“Transit policing is in a community and that is our riders on our system and on Metro properties,” he said.
The group, Dignity & Power Now, which advocates for more mental health and substance abuse services in L.A. County and less incarceration, is critical of LA Metro’s decision to start a new police force.
Janet Asante, the group’s campaign manager, said the money would have been better spent on more mental health and substance abuse workers, instead of armed police officers. She’d also like to see Metro put more money into helping those who are unhoused find shelter.
“By instituting this massive force of 600 officers we are committed to paying annually into a system that doesn’t make the system more relevant or more safe,” she said.
When asked about LA Metro’s claim that the DPS will work with other workers not armed in order to help those on trains, depots or buses in mental distress or abusing drugs — what Metro calls a balanced approach — Asante indicated she wasn’t buying it.
“Another police force is another police force. They just wear slightly different colors,” she said.
However, LA Metro, says their tiered safety system, even with LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff deputies, is working, and will get even better once DPS is operational.
Violent crime declined for the second consecutive year in 2025, reaching its lowest level since 2021, the agency reported.
In March 2026, the last month data was available, the system experienced a 13.5% decrease in overall crime since March 2025, the agency reported.
A new LA Metro public safety dashboard reports 30,335 surveillance cameras systemwide. There were 790 citations issued for fare evasion in March 2026 and 7,151 ejections. The data shows that those who cheat by jumping the fare gates and riding for free are more likely to commit crimes, Metro has reported.
LA Metro had its own police in the 1990s but they were absorbed by the LAPD and LACSD in 1997.