BART Security Cameras Key To Capture Of Stabbing Suspect
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- Just about everywhere you look at a BART station, you will see a camera. While the system's 4,000 electronic eyes couldn't prevent the killing of 18-year-old Nia Wilson by a knife wielding attacker, they were key to the suspect's arrest.
BART Deputy Police Chief Ed Alvarez showed KPIX the camera that caught the stabbing as it happened outside the train's door.
The same camera captured the first image of suspected killer John Lee Cowell. But that was just the start.
"We followed him downstairs, through the construction area here," said Aliyyah Shah, a BART police officer.
Another camera caught Cowell as he changed clothes, leading to a search that found an ID Cowell had dropped. Police used the ID they found to track down a photo taken of Lee by a police body camera when he was cited just days earlier for fare evasion. The photos were made public just before, along with an earlier mug shot.
Lee was also recognized by riders who called into a dispatch center, helping police clock him the same afternoon as he rode BART again.
HE rode from the Coliseum station in East Oakland, switched trains at either 12th Street, 19th Street, or MacArthur stations, and then went onto an Antioch bound train. He was picked up when the train stopped at Pleasant Hill.
Cameras were also used to track another suspect in an additional possible homicide the week before Wilson's murder. The other case used evidence from the Bay Fair station and an AC Transit to gather photos of the suspect.
"We've got cameras right here. There are multiple on each car," said BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost.
A year ago, three out of four cameras at BART weren't working--they were dummies.
"Some of them were dummies, some of them weren't. We had a passenger who was shot on board a train, and BART stepped up and said, 'We need real cameras to replace all of these decoys. We need working cameras in every car,'" said Trost.
Now, BART is asking for even more cameras. They put in a request for $11 million more for cameras and other security upgrades along the BART line.
