Long Beach residents will see more officers on patrol around the city as Metro contract ends
The city is winding down its agreement to police the Los Angeles transit agency’s trains and stations in Long Beach; Metro will form its own police force in coming years.
Long Beach Police could continue to patrol local Metro stations and trains through the first quarter of 2025, but the wind-down of their contract with the Los Angeles transit agency will mean more cops deployed on the city’s streets.
Metro has long had agreements with the Long Beach and Los Angeles police departments and the Los Angeles County Sheriff to protect transit riders and train stops, but the agency’s board of directors voted in June to create their own police force.
Long Beach’s contract with Metro expires Dec. 30 but includes monthly extensions through March 2025 if both parties agree. Long Beach police said in an email Thursday that the department “will continue to partner with LA Metro to ensure the safety of our community while also collaborating with any law enforcement structure put into place by LA Metro.”
The decision was made "after significant deliberation and analysis of crime statistics, staffing considerations, and contractual obligations," the email said.
It’s unclear how policing of Metro’s eight stations in Long Beach will be handled after the contract concludes, since Metro officials have said it could take several years to assemble their new law enforcement arm and it may not roll out until after the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
LA Metro officials “value our partnership with the Long Beach Police Department,” spokesperson Patrick Chandler wrote in an email. He added that although the contract is set to end soon, “we will continue to work closely with the Long Beach Police Department to ensure the safety of our stations and customers in alignment with our other law enforcement resources.”
Long Beach police said in their statement that officers will continue responding to service calls on and near Metro stations and trains in the city.
The coming change offers one benefit to Long Beach: ending its contract with Metro will free up nine officers, two sergeants and a lieutenant to return to regular patrols. The department has been so understaffed, last year vacancies topped 14% of sworn positions and officers were given mandatory overtime shifts.
Meanwhile, Metro has been exploring other ways to better manage its trains and passengers, piloting a tap-to-exit requirement at end-of-the-line stations to reduce fare dodging and this fall unveiling new weapons detection systems it is testing at Union Station in Los Angeles.
We need your support.
Subcribe to the Watchdog today.
The Long Beach Watchdog is owned by journalists, and paid for by readers like you. If independent, local reporting like the story you just read is important to you, support our work by becoming a subscriber.
