After Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew eviscerated the Transit Police on Thursday, you knew a response was coming from the TP’s union or chief. It looks like COPE Local 378 drew the short straw, as this letter appeared in today’s Sun:

Transit police do more than check fares; they reduce crime
Re: Transit police are taking taxpayers for a ride, Column, Aug 16

If Ian Mulgrew had taken a closer look at the evidence, he’d know transit police provide commuters great value for money.

The very review Mulgrew cites shows crime, especially violent crime, on our transit system is down dramatically thanks to transit police.

With fewer sworn officers than the Abbotsford Police Department, transit police are responsible for 2,800 square kilometres of bus and SkyTrain lines and about 233 million transit riders throughout the year.

Transit police officers aren’t just checking fares or providing a reassuring presence on our SkyTrain platforms. They are solving crimes alone or in tandem with jurisdictional police across all TransLink municipalities, protecting private and public property, and tracking and removing repeat offenders from our transit system.

In 2010 alone, fare checks allowed transit police to arrest 117 people with outstanding warrants and 357 who had breached court conditions.

They also have the training to ensure the safety of our system at a time when mass transit the world over has been targeted for attacks.

Their salaries are in line with other municipal police forces.

The transit police were created in 2004 to fulfil a need identified, in part, by then solicitor- general Rich Coleman and the B. C. Association of Chiefs of Police.

That need to drive down property crime, violent offences and sexual assaults on our transit system has not gone away and is being well fulfilled by transit police. HEATHER LEE COPE 378 Vice- President 

A fine piece of spin, but let’s set the record straight. Yes, crime is down on SkyTrain. But as the VPD audit showed, SkyTrain crime fell half as much as Lower Mainland crime—meaning the Transit Police (if this is the measure we use) were half as effective as jurisdictional police.

As for Transit Police being responsible for bus lines, that’s probably welcome news to the bus drivers and their union, who have been begging for more TP to ride the lines. Frankly, it doesn’t happen. In fact, TP cut their bus loop liaison office.

Two-thirds of TP work is writing fare evasion tickets. The average Transit cop investigates less than 10 serious and property crime files a YEAR—and that includes unfounded or unsubstantiated files.

As for lucking into people with warrants out on them, this will change dramatically when fare gates go live. The police will lose the right to assume anyone in a fare paid zone hasn’t paid, and civil liberties will rightly be all over them if they keep checking as many fares in SkyTrain stations.

Oh, an no other police force gets paid a 25 per cent bonus for working Sundays—nor rakes in the kind of overtime these guys billed for.