Bi-State president speaks on safety after MetroLink murder
ST. LOUIS – The president of Bi-State is speaking out for the first time since someone was murdered on a MetroLink platform over the weekend.
A 17-year-old suspect is being held, facing charges of second-degree murder and armed criminal action. A woman was shot and killed at the Forest Park-DeBalievere platform. Despite the incident, Bi-State’s President, Taulby Roach, believes the transportation is safe.
“As upsetting as a circumstance like this is, what I ask everybody to do is be sure that we’re making the investments that need to be made,” Roach said. “We’re talking about rigorous video surveillance…and it was positive in solving this crime. It’s upsetting, but we’re moving forward.”
A long-time critic of MetroLink security, Derrick Keith Cox, is a member of the Bi-State Board of Commissioners. He told FOX 2 that more needs to be done.
“No, it’s not safe yet, especially not as safe as I would like it…but I can tell you on the back end of things, there are a lot of hard workers. It all starts on the platform,” Cox said. “What I’m pushing for is metal detectors to go through just to get on the platform. That will stop a lot of the problem.”
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Roach says that while they want real, professional police on their system, they’re always going to look at what other things can be done to make the community safer.
Bi-State is pinning much of its hopes for a safer system on the $50 million project of renovating the MetroLink stations to keep out non-ticket holders.
Frequent riders, like Ebony Gillespie, told FOX 2 she was even more fearful in the wake of the weekend murder.
“(The security) don’t do much. They are scared for their life, just like we scared for our life. It’s sad,” she said.
“We’re going to lean into those critics and see what are the things we can do within our community,” Roach said.
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