Dear Anonymous Coward,

First off, let's get one thing straight. You're not sorry you're ranting at all. That's perfectly obvious from your slightly nasty tone. Now, let's pick your poor little argument apart line by line. I'll skip the personal assaults because that's always an indication of weak to non-existent basis in logic, reason, or reality.

Amazingly, you seem to come up with statistics that boggle the mind. When was the last time a murder, or MURDERS as you put it, occurred on DART property? Where do you get information?

Hmm...let's see...that would be FROM DART. You indicate that there aren't any, then you turn around and contradict yourself and say that there have been "a couple". Perhaps you should pull your own stats and have a peek. I have 3 years worth. I'm still converting them to a digital format, but I'd be happy scan them and send them to you.

All that aside, one is too freakin' many. It's just more proof that you're not staffed appropriately. But then, we both know that and you've already agreed with that.

I assure you that the DART Police Department rank and file, as well as the rank and file of every other police agency in America, are aware of their staffing troubles and are working diligently to correct the situation.

We're not talking about every police agency in America. We're talking about DART. I hear that DPD was very successful in Detroit. Perhaps, you should take a lesson from their example. I notice that a lot of the places that you're advertising are local or seem to be targeted to people looking for a specific geographic region.

And, just a little tidbit of information, most seasonal functions, such as the State Fair, are not police function. Those officers are their as Off-Duty Police Employment or they are paid overtime.

I'm impressed, the best thing you can come up with is to point out that the DPD officers are getting paid over time to work the State Fair. No mention of how the number of officers needed for that is arrived or why you have about 1/3 as many for the entire transit system. That must mean that my assessment is right.

Furthermore, the police men that are there are 1) in uniform, 2) can still arrest you, and 3) are still armed. In essence, they are still functioning as police officers. I fail to see how you pointing out that they're there on over time is even relevant to the issue at hand which is how understaffed DART PD is.

Obviously, you have chosen to utilize your talents in a manner that shows the good people of Dallas that you are about as uninformed as... oh I don’t know...J. Schutze, Dallas Observer, who likened the DART Police to Nazis, and sensationalized something that occurs in cities everywhere.

Oh, lets see, that's not been the only thing DART officers have been involved in. There was the officer who coerced underage girls into sex in exchange for "making their ticket go away." There was the "Kickstand Scandal" where DART officers were engaged in extortion and having sex while on duty. Then there's the DART officer that's currently under indictment for using his uniform, his police car, his badge and his gun to kidnap and sexually assault a woman.

If you guys want a better image, you might try something simple. It's calling behaving yourselves.

The Texas Rangers are incredibly well respected. Why? Because they do their jobs with a brisk effiencey and because they are *not* involved in these kinds of scandals. This is a model you might try emulating. Heck, they're even pretty close to being local.

All the while, you just keep typing away about any little thing that crosses your mind, with very little research.

I suspect that you don't like having what you're doing pointed out to people. I do my research. I file Freedom of Information Act Requests rather frequently.

I think I hit a bit too close to home.

Even a Google search now and then would not hurt. Funny thing is that you miss the good things that these agencies do.

We're not discussing "these agencies". We're talking about hiring more DART police officers so that you're staffed appropriately and so that the 98.1 million passenger trips per year can be peaceful, uneventful, and safe.