In response to last week’s shooting on a subway train, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Association Police Chief Joseph A. Carter has assigned additional officers to patrol Orange Line trains and stations, according to MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo.
The shooting occurred at approximately 8 p.m. on Wednesday as the train entered the Massachusetts Avenue Station in Roxbury, according to MBTA Police spokeswoman Lydia Rivera. The victim, a 29-year-old woman, nearly nine months pregnant, was shot in the abdomen, she said. The victim’s baby died after she was taken to Boston Medical Center, and police are still looking for five young men in connection with the shooting.
Though some commuters expressed specific concerns about stations in Roxbury and Dorchester, the added security will patrol the entire Orange Line already the ‘T”s most heavily monitored line from Oak Grove to Forest Hills.
The ‘T’ had previously assigned an undercover group in an effort to deter youth crimes, but the group was disbanded in 2001, Pesaturo said.
‘There were allegations that some of the undercover officers were going too far,’ he said.
MBTA statistics showed that after-school crime increased 50 percent after the program was halted, Pesaturo said. Though the group was only temporarily disbanded, it would be up to Carter to reinstate it, he said.
Overall security levels on the ‘T’ also increased last Friday when the national Office of Homeland Security increased the threat of terrorist attack to orange, or high.
‘We’ve tightened security across the entire transit system in response to the increased terrorist threat,’ Pesaturo said.
Boston University students expressed little concern about their safety on Boston’s subways. Julia Shaw, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she had no concerns about riding the ‘T,’ ‘mostly because it’s such a public place,’ she said.
‘The only poorly lit or deserted ‘T’ stations I’ve been to have been in the suburbs, where I feel maybe naïvely – that there’s no threat.’
She said she has never seen a situation where people were actually in danger on the ‘T.’
‘Occasionally there will be someone aggressive on the train, in which case everyone just stays quiet and avoids looking at him.’
CAS freshman Andrew Stream said he had few concerns overall, but was certain ‘problem areas’ do exist.
‘I’m just worried because at certain times and in certain areas, there seems to be a higher incident of crime and a lower incident of security,’ he said.
Stream mentioned specific fears of the Orange Line through Roxbury and also the Red Line near Alewife.
‘MBTA Police should just be more present at night in the more crime-ridden areas,’ he said.
A lifelong Dorchester resident and a senior in CAS, Daniela Poles also expressed mixed feelings about her safety on the ‘T.’
‘I have had many unpleasant experiences in my 21 years of riding the subway,’ she said, ‘and I do sometimes feel unsafe at certain Red and Orange line stops.’
Poles said she has never had any real trouble, however, and the biggest nuisances were drunken students on B-Line trains.
‘I feel it is a relatively safe means of transportation,’ she said. ‘People are afraid to take public transportation, but to tell you the truth I’d rather take the Orange, Red and Blue Line over certain Green Line routes any day.
‘The ”T”s okay,’ she said, ‘and besides, it’s my only mode of transportation in this cold weather.’