It was a wild Christmas Eve on BART, as a man with a semi-automatic rifle was “bothering other riders,” until BART Police arrested him and had him hauled off to Santa Rita Jail.
Since Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year, BART was of course running on a Sunday service schedule, which meant the last trains were at midnight. But not long before midnight on Christmas Eve, some BART riders on the Orange Line got an unwelcome Christmas surprise, as KTVU reports that a man with an AR-15-style rifle was menacing passengers on a Richmond-bound train.
BART Police explained in an odd Christmas Day post that “Last night on Christmas Eve at 11:20pm, our train operator noticed a male bothering other riders on a Richmond bound train and notified BART Police.” The post adds that the man “had a concealed pistol grip AR-style rifle inside his pants.”
Is that a concealed pistol grip AR-style rifle in your pants, or are you just happy to — ahh, forget it.
The train operator notified BART Police, who intercepted the man, 36-year-old Archie Hansbury of Oakland, at Fruitvale Station. (And apparently it was Hansbury’s birthday too? BART Police describe his birth date as being “12/24/1987.”) He was arrested at Fruitvale and taken into custody at Santa Rita Jail.
“Through the watchful eye of our frontline staff and the quick response by police officers we were able to get this gun out of our system and the suspect off our train,” BART Police added in their post. “From new fare gates to increased police presence to speed up response times, BART is working on a number of safety efforts to keep our system safe and inviting.”
BART is targeting the end of December as the first day of revenue service for the new fare gates at West Oakland Station.
— BART (@SFBART) December 22, 2023
The gates are undergoing hundreds of tests right now. While this is not the final design, we will be testing new designs, materials and features. pic.twitter.com/D5WCU66eaK
It may seem a little unusual that they brought up the new fare gates in relation to this incident. But BART said in a Twitter post last week that they’re “targeting the end of December” to install their new supposedly “evasion-proof” gates, which means the first of these new gates may indeed roll out at West Oakland Station this week.
Related: Box of Puppies Found in Stolen Vehicle at Coliseum BART Station Parking Lot [SFist]
Image: BART Police Department via Facebook
