RTD's Transit Police Department Detective Bureau is now fully operational

DENVER — As of Wednesday, the RTD's Transit Police Department Detective Bureau is fully operational and ready to begin investigating cases as they arise.

The police department, abbreviated as RTD-PD, announced the official launch on Wednesday morning. Detectives within the bureau will investigate crimes that happen on RTD property across the many jurisdictions that the buses and trains travel through. This can include theft, trespassing, fraud and forgery, public peace and order crimes, firearm crimes, weapon violations and controlled substance offenses.

It's part of RTD's overarching plan to reduce crime, which has also included leaving elevator doors open at stations, providing safety shields for drivers, and installing live cameras inside buses.

The detective bureau will offset the need for other agencies to pursue investigations into crimes that happen on RTD's property, the agency said.

Denver7 shared the news of this bureau in January, and in March, Anchor Shannon Ogden reported on new details Denver7 had obtained about it. At the time, RTD said it hoped to have the bureau up and running by May, however this was delayed.

Watch Shannon Ogden's report from March below.

RTD trains and buses travel about 2,400 square miles through eight counties and 40 municipal districts.

Previously, when a crime occurred on one of the trains or buses, the law enforcement agency whose jurisdiction the crime occurred in was required to investigate it. With the opening of the RTD-PD's detective bureau, those crimes can now be investigated by RTD instead of using other departments' resources.

“The agency owns small areas of property in other jurisdictions," RTD said in a Wednesday press release. "RTD can oversee certain types of criminal investigations instead of relying on our partnerships with other agencies that may be experiencing resource constraints. There will be less calls for service on our system for outside agencies to address because most criminal investigations we encounter are ones the bureau is equipped to handle."

The agency said it wanted to have five detectives working by the end of the year. In January, it promoted Transit Police officer Fabian Rodriguez to detective lieutenant, so he is now the head of the detective bureau unit, and Transit Police officer Brian Beary was promoted to detective. The third detective, Craig Tangeman, joined RTD-PD on Jan. 21. RTD said on Wednesday that it had hired three additional detectives, including Victim’s Advocate Program Specialist Julie McKinster.

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