SEPTA welcomes 21 new police officers to the force

This story originally appeared on 6abc.

Twenty-one new officers were sworn in at SEPTA headquarters on Wednesday and began patrolling the subways soon thereafter.

“Making sure that we are making our employees safe as well as our customers feeling safe,” said Leslie Richards, the CEO of SEPTA, of the new recruits. “We said we were going to increase our police employment, now we’re seeing how we’re doing it.”

The recruits went through a rigorous six-month process to get to this point.

This class brings SEPTA’s total beat officers to about 160 which is a 10% increase. SEPTA is budgeted for 170 officers and expects to hit that number with the next class of recruits.

“If they want to get the riders back they need to let the riders know that they can feel safe riding on a bus, riding on the El, or the subway,” said Tonya Green, who rides public transit.

SEPTA has seen a rise in crime on their properties in recent months, including deadly shootings and stabbings.

Action News found aggravated assaults have steadily increased year-over-year with 111 reported in 2022. So far in 2023, 59 have been reported.