More News

Residents who oppose random bag searches at Metro stations say the new policy will do little to protect passengers and will infringe on constitutional rights.

Under the policy that went into effect last month, Metro Transit Police officers will be posted at randomly selected Metro rail and bus stations in the District, Maryland and Virginia during times of "heightened vigilance." Officers plan to search bags based on a number system, with every seventh being inspected, for instance, according to Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority spokeswoman Cathy Asato. WMATA oversees the Metro police.

Some residents of Takoma Park and nearby Northwest are outraged, saying the inspections will be unwarranted and could violate Fourth Amendment protections. The inspections will not be conducted equally for all passengers and officers will not have search warrants, they said. They called the new policy a public relations move that will not actually prevent a terrorist attack.

Steve Smith, who lives in the Takoma neighborhood of the District, said the Metro inspections are more arbitrary than other kinds of public screenings, like sobriety checkpoints and airport security checks.

"We have stops for drinking on the road, but everyone passes through, we don't just have stops on every seventh car," he said. "The other part of this is that if they find anything like a gun or drugs, they have in fact done a search and identified an illegality that could be challenged in court because they didn't have a warrant."

Asato said if they arise, legal challenges will be handled in the courts. She cited similar inspection programs implemented by transportation systems in New York, Boston and other U.S. cities that have been upheld.

In August 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in MacWade v. Kelly that random bag inspections by New York City Police in subway stations constituted an exception to the Fourth Amendment.

"The real value of this program is the deterrent effect that it has; the inspections will take about 15 seconds, and it's not going to be everybody and it's not going to be every day," Asato said.

So far no inspections have taken place, but signs are appearing in stations warning of the possibility.