Bus Citation

On March 17, I was finishing a bagel on the RTD bus on my way to work, when a man flashed his Transit Police badge at me and asked me to get off the bus. Not one but five undercover cops accompanied me off, and spent 15 minutes writing out a citation. Is this what police should be doing? Is this where taxpayers’ monies are going? It seems stupid and wasteful, but maybe I am just incapable of understanding the complex inter-workings of the systems that make up a city.

I called the Transit Police, and they explained that the undercover officers were on the bus that day trying to observe what problems existed. Five of them were used because “they didn’t know who I was”--I could have been on parole, etc. To me this still falls short.

ERIC BROWN

Los Angeles