Block Seeks to Take Over Transit Police Operations : Law enforcement: MTA officials say sheriff’s budget woes are sparking interest in cash-rich agency.

In a move that could save the jobs of deputies facing layoffs, county Sheriff Sherman Block is conducting a behind-the-scenes campaign to take over the Transit Police force and security for the county’s rail and bus lines.

Block’s campaign is based in part on a study, paid for by the defunct Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, that recommends creating an agency to supervise law enforcement on the transit system. But a consultant who performed that study said the final report was rigged.

For the last several months, Block has lobbied members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, sent copies of the study and drafted a proposal in an effort to win a role for his agency.

The move comes at a time when the Sheriff’s Department faces cuts of $108.4 million because of the county’s severe fiscal problems. By contrast, the Transit Police, whose funding is guaranteed by the county sales tax, has been authorized to hire 130 officers to patrol the ever-expanding transit network.

Block said that his interest in taking control of transit policing has nothing to do with his department’s budget woes. “I have one single interest and that is providing quality public safety and reducing the amount of fear,” Block said. “Right now, people using transit (except for the Blue Line) do so with a high level of fear.”

He noted that the Blue Line, which is patrolled by his deputies, remains virtually crime-free, even though portions of the line operate in gang-plagued neighborhoods.

But some MTA officials said they believe Block is at least partly motivated by fiscal pressures.

“This is a full-court press going on by Sheriff Block,” said MTA Chairman Richard Alatorre, who is a Los Angeles city councilman.

Antonio Villaraigosa, chairman of the MTA’s Safety Ad Hoc Committee, said: “It’s more than a coincidence that law enforcement is finally getting interested in the public’s safety on transportation lines.”

Block’s campaign revives a longstanding competition between his agency and the Transit Police, which both competed for contracts to patrol the Blue Line trolley and the Red Line subway. In the most recent round, amid heavy politicking, the Transit Police won the contract for the Red Line. This time, the stakes are much higher, involving a takeover of the MTA’s entire Transit Police operation.

Under Block’s proposal, the Sheriff’s Department would absorb Transit Police officers and deploy them for security patrols on the transit lines. The department also would coordinate with other police agencies, whose territories are traversed by rail and bus routes.

In letters to various MTA board members in May, Block wrote: “If the authority is to succeed in its mission to improve mobility and establish alternatives to the commuter’s private automobile, it is critical that potential patrons have the perception that public transportation, both bus and rail, is reliable, safe and friendly.”

To bolster his case, Block also sent MTA board members copies of a report from an outside consultant, Joseph T. Rouzan Jr., who recently became the executive director of the Los Angeles Police Commission. The $35,000 security study was ordered last fall by the Transportation Commission.

In its preliminary form in January, the report expressed concerns about the Transit Police being stretched thin.

According to the draft, the department’s 200 officers, “police a 2,200-square-mile area within which there are 25,000 bus stops, between 2,200 and 2,500 buses in service . . . not to mention their responsibility for protecting all (transit agency) properties and employees and for deterring, detecting and investigating crimes committed against (the agency) by its own employees.”

It recommended increasing the Transit Police staff, adding computers and cars, and implementing a centralized system to monitor transit crimes.

When the final report was released, it was more critical of Transit Police operations and did not include the recommendation to expand its ranks. It did call for establishing an Office of Public Safety to coordinate law enforcement efforts and a uniform transit crime reporting system. It also suggested that the MTA decide as soon as possible how its policing needs could best be met.

Ken Hickman, a 27-year veteran of the LAPD who wrote the preliminary report for Rouzan, said “the final report was a rigged report.”

Hickman said he began to feel pressure soon after starting his work.

Lou Hubaud, director of safety and security for the Rail Construction Corp., “had an agenda that was quite clear,” Hickman said. “Hubaud wanted (Transit Police Chief) Sharon Papa out and the sheriff in. . . . They just wanted somebody to legitimize what they wanted to do.”

Hickman said Rouzan personally took over the project and wrote the final report.

Hubaud said that he had never tried to influence the findings of the report. “I don’t deal like that. I would never have any part of anything like that.”

Hubaud said he had applied for the top job with the Transit Police and lost out to Papa. But he said he bore no ill will toward the Transit Police.

Rouzan acknowledged he rewrote Hickman’s draft, but said he never felt pressured to tailor the recommendations of the report. “I would not have caved in or condoned any kind of pressure,” said Rouzan.

Because of the controversy surrounding the report, the MTA’s Safety Ad Hoc Committee asked Rouzan and Hickman on Thursday to explain at their next meeting how the report evolved into its present form.

In the months ahead, committee members will grapple with the larger question of whether the MTA should use its in-house Transit Police or hire the Sheriff’s Department to take over.