05-15-25 *INTERVIEW* Safety on RTD with Acting Chief of Police Steve Martingano

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here with you.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Just a couple of headlines, but I promise you we're
not going to focus on the negative in this conversation,
but just to kind of understand some challenges. He a
headline from Axios Denver new RTD chief vows to rebuild
trust in wake of Union Station shooting and from KDVR.
RTD's new police chief responds after Union Station shooting, there's

(00:23):
still work to do. So again, not going to focus
on the negative here, just we want to deal with reality.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
What's going on in Denver, what's going on with RTD.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Not just Union Station, but how should folks feel when
it comes to safety and security throughout RTD joining us
to talk about it. Steve Martin Gano is the acting
chief of Police and Emergency Management for RTD. I should
ask you, Steve, are you still acting or is that?
Are you now official and not acting anymore?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah? I was officially sworn in on Tuesday, so I
am the police chief. Wow, the RTD trans police barker.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
All right, congratulations, I'm gonna everybody pretend I didn't say
the word acting. Steve is Chief of Police and Emergency Management.
Congratulations on the gig. I think assuming you want it.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah, well I put it for it, so obviously I want.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Okay, So, without being too backward looking, there was a
lot of stuff during COVID, in particular around Denver, RTD
very difficult times. Union stations started getting getting a reputation
as a place that you actively didn't want to go,
which is bad for the whole city. It's bad for RTD,
it's bad for everybody. Things do seem a lot better now.

(01:32):
So I would like you to tell us what things
are like now, and maybe you can give me two
separate answers Union Station specifically and RTD generally, and then
we're going to talk about what you're doing going forward.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Perfect.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yeah, So obviously during COVID, a lot of places to
shut down and a lot of shelters, you know, a
lot of that was volunteer based.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
RTD stayed open obviously.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
You know, we were open for individuals that needed to
get places for need or to be medical or work.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
So what ended up happening is a lot of individuals
came over to RGD because we were the only place
that had our doors open. You know, we worked very
hard with the city in Denver when COVID kind of
finally ended and things were opening up again, so we
utilized a different tiered approach. We had a lot of
mental health clinician on house navigators coming out assisting us

(02:22):
with individuals, trying to get them back to the shelters
that were opening to places in need. And then a
lot of individuals were not obviously adhering to the laws
and municipal laws within.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
The city and County of Denver, so we did have
to make some arrests there.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
But the beginning was more education and trying to get
people to, you know, the facilities that were designed to
help with the individuals that might be experienced holmost instrumental health.
And the past couple of years we continue those efforts
and you could see obviously Union Station has definitely changed
since then.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Okay, and then what about more broadly RTD safety and security,
Like a Union Station got a lot of attention, but
a lot of other places had their own struggles, and
I assume that those places that a lot of that
has been ameliorated as well.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Just give us a little status update there.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yeah, So, you know, the older style of policing was was,
you know, our officers were kind of going around listening
to the radio, you know, and trying to handle issues
that were coming into our TV.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
We found that, you know, that that's not the best approach.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
So when I did take over the acting position back
in July, I met with all of our officers and
I asked them to, you know.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Get out of the vehicles, be present.

Speaker 4 (03:33):
Be more visible, ride our trains, ride our buses, get
to know our customers, get to know our employees, find
out where the issues are. We used a lot of
our crime data analysts analysis to find out exactly where
issues were happening, so we were being more present at
those locations and that's definitely changed.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
So since July, our criminal instance.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
Have continually to decline from last year to this year,
and a lot of that I think is a proactive
policing approach and just getting visible. You know, once you
an officer standing on a platform, chances are you're not
going to do something that's going to be negative, especially
quality of life issues DRUGG related. So we're seeing more
of that. We're doing a lot more fair enforcement as well,
having people be honest paying for their fair that's a

(04:13):
portion of our budget. So those all those ideas put
together has really shown a huge decline and criminal instance,
I think has been making RTD a more of a
welcome trans environment.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
By the way, for listeners, if you would like to
ask a question of Steve Martin Gano, who is who
is the chief of police and Emergency Management for RTD,
and especially if you are a regular RTD rider, you
can text in your questions at five six six nine zero.
And as usual, I do not promise to ask every
question that gets sent to me, but if you send

(04:46):
a good question, then I will probably ask it. And
again for folks who are active RTD users, that's particularly
who I would like to hear from.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I'm a little curious, and I.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Should know this already, Steve, but I'm a little curious
about your background because that change you made get out
of your car be visible, which I think is fabulous,
is kind of old school, and I'm and sometimes old
school is the right way, and I'm I'm a little
curious about your background if there's something in your in

(05:19):
your professional background that just kind of made that like
an obvious thing to you, like, of course we need
to do this. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
So I started my career i'll be thirty two years
ago in July. I was a New York City police officer.
So I actually walked the foot post for a year
and a half in Queen's, New York. And that's really
where that high visibility, getting to know individuals, getting no
community started. It was really Bill Bratton's philosophy when he
became a police commissioner, kind of that broken windows effect.

(05:49):
If you start contacting individuals for the smaller crimes, hopefully
they don't lead to the larger crimes. But like I said,
to get to my foot post, I would have to
take a subway car as well as a bus just
to it to my post within this you know, my
borough and my area of Queens And I met a
lot of individuals that you know on the train, they
would come up to it to me, thank me for
being on that.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
Train, you know, for the for that commute.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
And that's where really I built that customer service type philosophy.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
And I said, that's what we really are.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
I mean, we go three counties and forty cities here,
twenty three hundred square miles, but we're really you know,
our locations are pretty direct, right. We have a platform here,
so let's be visible there, Let's let's meet our customers,
let's talk to them, help them, and also I said,
that's going to definitely the sturt crime in that area.
And then working with the municipalities is something that we

(06:39):
are really really pushing here. You know, we need assistants
from all those cities and counties to assist us. We
have eighty seven officers. It sounds like a lot, but
when you spread that out, it's not a lot. But
I said, I've also had a lot of municipality experience
working for our Vada in Denver before coming here. Our
TV is not a listen to the radio and be
directed type of some philosophy who you need to be proactive,

(07:02):
find out where the issues are and be visible for that.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Let me follow up on your comment there about the
number of officers you have. One thing that happened during
during COVID basically, although not because of COVID, more because
of George Floyd and all that, you had a lot
of sort of defund the police and a lot of
this kind of nonsense and a sort of negative negative

(07:28):
views towards law enforcement that nationwide, not in any one place,
started making recruitment difficult. And I'm wondering with do you
have the number of officers that you would like to
have and if you and are are you recruiting, Like
maybe there's somebody listening who would be interested in that job,

(07:49):
but just as a matter of how your department is operating,
I'm curious about this.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
Yeah, So we were actually budgets for one hundred and fifty.
So we are recruiting at this point in time. Right
now when I'm reciting entry level officers because the academy
starts here in June, but after after July we'll start
posting again to have entry level officers for the December
academy classes. We hire a lot of lateral officers. We've
been having a lot of interviews. I think two reasons

(08:16):
on that. One is, you know, you talked about obviously
the defunding you know at a better language would have
been is reallocating resources. So we do have a mental
health clinician program or corresponder program. I introduce that and
it's the first in the country for public transportation. And
we also have have unhoused navigators which go out. We
have a lot of campments along our rail lines and

(08:38):
that's obviously a personal safety issue for individuals that may
have to cross our tracks.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
We definitely don't want that, you know.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
We don't want anyone getting hit by a train as
well as putting our operators in those situations. So you know,
we do utilize outside, outside of policing philosophies to try
to contact our customers and people along our alignment. But
we're a hugely different type of policing, you know, I
think that's what we're also newer. So a lot of

(09:05):
people like coming over here, they're getting better days off
of building seniority to move up. We've had a lot
of people coming as officers now they're sergeants and corporals
and lieutenants. But again, one of the things about policing,
if I go to your house, I don't know where
your steaknyves are, I don't know where your guns are,
I don't know what kind of weapons you might have.
But us, we know what our trains look like, you know,

(09:25):
we you know, we we train that, we know what
our buses look like. So we're taking away a huge
emphasis in regards to officer safety because we already know
the location that we're going to. So then now the
officer could really focus on the issue as on hand
as as you know, as opposed to having those forty
different eyes looking all over someone's bedroom and everything else,

(09:45):
so that a lot of officers really enjoy that style
of policing a little bit better. And plus we're very supportive.
We've been hiring. We just had a great contract with
our paternal older police. We're investing in our officers. They
know they have huge support here. A lot of them
don't feel that different cities that they've worked out before,
So we're getting a lot of aufers coming over here
for that philosophy as well.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
That's that's really interesting one sort of quality of life
question for you. Another thing that I realized the plural
of anecdote is not data but anecdotally. A lot of
my listeners who ride our TD would text into the
show over the not so much the last several months
a couple, but for a couple of years before that,

(10:26):
saying like, there was like a homeless guy who just
stunk of pe on the back. It's sitting in the
back of the bus or on the train, and this
is happening all the time. And I think this probably
ties into what you're talking about with the homeless navigators.
But is that a priority for you to get people
off of the buses, in the trains who aren't supposed

(10:47):
to be there, who are making the experience worse for
paying customers.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
So yeah, well, first of all, you know, it is
public transportation, so you can have the whole public right,
I tresh you where, you know, where our vehicles go.
You know, we're interrolling with the fabrics of those communities,
so you might you know, customers might experience maybe something
that they're not used to with someone sitting near them
or around them at a bus or a train. But
you know, if they are paying customer, obviously they're able

(11:14):
to use our our system as anyone else. Now, we
do have a respect to ride, which is kind of
a customer code of conduct. If someone's violating that customer
code of conduct, then we will obviously contact an individual
and just like anything else, right, no shirts and shoes
at a restaurant, you know, you need to leave.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
We have a you know, we have a long list
of of.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
What we expect people to adhere to while they're on
our system and our properties and they're violating that. That
gives us us a tool for our officers, our security officers,
to contact them, tell them they're violating you know, our
customer Code of conduct, ask them to leave or ask
them to you know, change their behaviors. So we do
have methods in place, but obviously, you know, we would

(11:56):
never target someone based off of what we feel, you know,
is is a certain.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Category of class of individuals.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
Sure know they need to use our transportation to get
there there to their destinations just as much as anybody else.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Okay, and folks, we're talking with Steve Martin Gano, Chief
of Police and Emergency Management for our t D. If
you have a question, you can send it in at
five six six nine zero one.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Follow up on that.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
This might sound a little petty, but this is you
know what I what I hear from listeners is you
know you're talking about you can take people off if
they violate rules. If somebody literally just stinks of urine,
is that and you can smell it through the whole
train car, the whole bus, is that a violation of
the rules.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
Yeah, there there is a there is some provisions in
there in regards to you know, personal hygiene and that
kind of you know, look at the situations.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
So again we could contact.

Speaker 4 (12:47):
Them and then and then you know, if an individual
needs needs assistance in regards to you know, getting to
a shelter or trying to you know, change change there,
you know, that type of of complaints. You know, well,
you know, that's again where we utilize our resources, reach
out to our neighboring partners to see if we could
get somebody there to get them assistance. Again, that's really

(13:11):
you know that, that's our first philosophy is education, contacting,
trying to get them to understand what the rules are,
and then you know, go from you know, go from
that point on to see how cooperative they're going to
be and hopefully, like I say, have them continue to
be a customer. But just you know, fall you know,
obviously fall within the parameters that we have in our
Customer Code.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Of conducts okay, And I have a feeling this next
question is also less relevant.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Than it used to be.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
But I have a vague recollection that there either is
or was proposed a rule that said you're only allowed
to ride for a certain number of hours so you
sort of don't turn it into your hotel room or something.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Is there is there a rule like that?

Speaker 4 (13:50):
There used to be a rule about ours based now
you know, we do have you know, and this is
a this is a nationwide epidemic in regards to you know,
we we kind of generalize it as non destination writers.
You know, especially you know, you know, climbing weather, right
if it's really cold here or snowing, you know, sometimes
people will utilize our transit system to stay out.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Of those elements.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
And again that's where you know, we rely on our
customers and our operators to let us know that, hey,
this individual continues ride back and forth, and then that's
when we will utilize our officers, our security to contact them,
find out, you know, where they're trying to go to,
and then work with them to get them to someplace else.
Because again, we're designed for public transportation. We're not a shelter.

(14:34):
We work with a lot of the shelters within the area.
They do not you know, they don't suggest people riding
our trains will because we don't have the resources in
case something happens medically, you know, or other bases of need.
So they want those individuals to come to their resources,
and we work to try to accommodate that.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
One last question for you, Steve, Assuming a person has
a concealed carry permit, are they allowed to carry concealed
on our TG they.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Are on our properties. They are allowed to car concealed.
You know, obviously someone wants to see you know, the weapon,
not knowing their you know, them having an apartment on that.

Speaker 4 (15:11):
You know, we would probably have officers someone respond to
contact on individuals, but they are able to carriconcealed as
long as it's a valid partment.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Everything else on all right, And I thought I would
leave you with a listener comment. I will I quote
kudos to RTD in twenty twenty two, I literally feared
for my life when entering Union Station. Now it's flooded
with security, with law enforcement, and I rarely feel unsafe.

(15:40):
So that's that's a good I mean, it's it's a
bummer that we ever got to the point where someone
would feel the way that listener felt. But clearly the
work that you're doing, combined with other things going on
with the economy, is making a big difference. And I
and I wish you ongoing success and congratulations on getting
the full time gig.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
Yeah, I appreciate that, and thank you for having me.
And one last thing, you know, for your listeners. We
do have a text I mean, we do have an
app that's text based it's called the Transit Watch shapp
If you are a writer, a customer for RTD, please
put that on your on your cell phone. You're able
to text us directly to our police communications center. So
you're a live person obviously you're not on the phone
trying to say, hey, the guy next to me is

(16:21):
doing this and that it's tech space. We you know,
we utilize that data to really understand times a day
that people see issues. So I encourage everyone to go ahead.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
And please put that on their phone one more time
with the name of the app. It's our Transit Watch,
Transit Watch, Transit Watch. Very good. Thank you, Steve.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
And if you ever run across something that you want
to get the word out to, you know, Choa's enormous
number of listeners, just be in touch with me and
we'll get you on the show.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (16:49):
If you do get any questions or anything else based
off of this interview, please howard it to me and I'll.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Be happy to talk to those individuals directly.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
We'll absolutely do that, all right, thank you. That's Steve
Martin Guano. He is the new head of Chief of
Police and Emergency Management for rt D.