Just one day into BART's new Ambassador program, a BART rider was attacked and injured by a suspect on board a Daly City-bound train Tuesday evening.
BART Police say that the incident occurred on a train as it approached Lake Merritt Station on Tuesday at 6:09 p.m. As KRON4 reports, the suspect, a white male in his 30s, asked the victim for directions before attacking him, unprovoked, using a chain that may have had a lock attached. The suspect then exited the train at Lake Merritt and fled.
The victim was taken to Highland Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
There are no further details about the crime, and it remains under investigation. The only other description of the suspect is that he was "wearing a white t-shirt, black sweatpants, a beanie, and was carrying two plastic bags."
The allegedly unprovoked attack took place on the second day of BART's new pilot program to deal with and discourage quality-of-life crime onboard trains, and provide outreach to the homeless who are riding on the BART system. These unarmed Ambassadors will be seen roving trains in pairs wearing BART jackets or t-shirts, between the hours of 2 p.m. and midnight. It sounds like they won't necessarily be on all trains, though — the description provided on Monday only indicated they would be on trains that run between on trains running between 12th Street in Oakland and Civic Center in SF, so the Daly City-bound train where last night's attack took place would not necessarily have been included in their rounds.
As we learned as this program was being created, BART Police don't themselves ride trains unless an incident or a threat has been reported — officers typically have beats that include several BART stations, and they use cars to travel between the stations.
Related: BART Adds Ambassadors, Switches Up Some Train Schedules Starting Today