BART Police Chief Ed Alvarez announced Wednesday that he will retire from the agency’s Police Department next month after four years leading the office.
Alvarez announced he will retire May 1. He was first named BART’s interim police chief in April 2019 and was subsequently appointed as the permanent chief in January 2020.
Alvarez has served within the BART Police Department for more than 25 years in total.
“It’s been the greatest honor of my career to lead the people of the BART Police Department for the last four years as we’ve welcomed the Bay Area back to transit in the wake of the pandemic,” Alvarez said in a statement.
During his time as police chief, Alvarez has overseen the launch of BART’s Transit Ambassadors program, a group of unarmed police personnel who help those dealing with mental and physical health crises aboard BART trains.
BART police also recently expanded its uniformed police presence aboard trains throughout the system in an effort to make riders feel safer.
Since Alvarez has overseen the department, BART police have also worked with the University of California, Los Angeles’ Center for Policing Equity to make policing less aggressive by eliminating from the BART police policy manual the use of carotid restraints and chokeholds as well as the term “excited delirium,” which has been used mostly by law enforcement as the cause of deaths in police custody, especially among those who are physically restrained.
“I’m proud of all the work we’ve done as we’ve strived together to make BART PD one of the most progressive and community-oriented police departments in the nation,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez will be succeeded on an interim basis by Deputy Chief Kevin Franklin, who currently leads the BART Police Department’s Operations Division.
Franklin has served with the BART Police Department since 1996 and previously served as BART’s manager of security programs from 2011 to 2018.
11 comments
A good time to leave is when the ship is sinking.
A golden parachute after four years. Seems like the thing to do at Bart. About time Bart asks for a few billion more.
I noticed that in other police departments and other places. Maybe they should start appointing younger chiefs.
@Ricardoh- I fully agree with that one. It seems to be a system set up to spike pensions without creating too much outrage from any single community. You get to be the chief for a year or do and then retire with a decent pension. If you need more money you become a chief somewhere else for a year or two and then are double-dipping the pension system. Some people seem to be professional chiefs and are collecting pensions from dozens of cities or towns. When you get tired of that “rat race” you retire and then become the chief of security for a large company.
The liberal board will hire a crime enabler.
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“…leading…”?
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Thats a stretch.
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If he were a leader, he would have pushes back against the BART Board and their “woke” policies.
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Sounds like BART – 4 yrs and he’s golden …. and in the meantime the public’s opinion of safety, thefts, etc has only gone downhill in the last 4 yrs… so what did he do to deserve it?
I almost never see BART police, on the other hand – I see people actively using or under the influence of drugs every single day. Congrats to him for preventing chokeholds and using a term in their reports though, maybe they’ll build him a statue.
BARF
Bay Area Rolling Failure
I don’t know the integrity of the below two groups; they say a chief’s usual tenure is:
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police1.com 2.5 to 3 years
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policeforum.org 7.3 years
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I guess not too surprising????
BART Police Department must have the largest undercover group of police officers compared to any other agency in California because I never see any uniform officers on the trains or in the stations.
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