Letters to the Editor: Metro’s unarmed Ambassadors have made riding transit feel safer. We don’t need more cops

To the editor: Metro’s Ambassador program is a great addition to the transit system. The staffers, in bright green shirts and unarmed, are enormously helpful and reassuring. They increase the sense of safety with their presence and service. They provide information and help. They convey concern and present caring faces to riders. (“Metro might create its own police force. Why that won’t make trains and buses safer,” Opinion, Dec. 8)

I hope this program will be awarded much of the money that may instead go toward creating an in-house Metro police force. More policing simply underscores fear without addressing the issues with which our troubled and vulnerable neighbors struggle.

Police officers are trained and oriented to police. The crises of mental health, dangerous drug use and lack of housing will not be resolved by more police officers who are not properly trained to address such calamities.

We need more people whose mission it is to provide such assistance, and the Metro Ambassadors fit that bill.

Jo Ann Dawson, Northridge

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To the editor: The opinion piece lauding Metro Ambassadors makes the program sound like a success. Still, the management of safety on Metro seems unfocused.

Recently, my wife and boarded a D Line train at Los Angeles Union Station while four uniformed security officers were confronting a screaming, aggressive, mentally disturbed man on the platform. Their solution? Herd the screaming guy into our crowded train car just before it pulled out.

Thank you, security. Meanwhile, the yummy food service areas at Union Station remain the safest places in the depot.

Ben Herndon, Los Angeles