Meet RTD's new Chief of Police and Emergency Management, Steve Martingano

RTD’s Chief of Police and Emergency Management, Steve Martingano, officially assumed the role of chief on Tuesday, May 13, following a swearing-in ceremony at Denver Union Station. Learn more about his experience, his policing philosophy and what employees, customers and the public can expect of him in this important position.

You have been selected to lead RTD’s Transit Police Department after many years of service to the agency’s customers and the people of the Denver metro region, more recently as a member of the department’s leadership team and, before that, as an officer assisting RTD-PD in a secondary capacity for a neighboring law enforcement agency. What does this perspective enable you to understand about the department, its evolution and where its focus must be?

I did 10 years in secondary employment for Denver PD. I would come to RTD, grab a car and a radio, and go out and assist with the quality-of-life issues that were affecting more so bus operations back then, because we were just starting the light rail process and commuter rail had not started.

Even in my early years, public transportation has been ingrained in me, growing up in New York. I used to take the Long Island Rail Road to the city when I attended the NYPD Police Academy. And when I worked in the 104th Precinct, Queens, I would have to take a train and a bus to get to my foot post location.

Utilizing public transportation has been a huge part of my life. I understand the need for it, but also the need to be out there, contacting the customers, understanding what they utilize your public transportation for and how we can assist them. That has been the main goal of it all. And that's what we're trying to do here. A lot of our officers come from municipalities where they might not have even had a bus stop, so they're fresh to this public transportation philosophy. And we need to instill in them that they need to know who our customers are, who our employees are, who our community is, and find out ways that we can support them and make it a welcoming transit environment.

RTD goes through eight counties and 40 cities. If I was just a police officer in Denver and I had no knowledge of RTD or worked with them in a secondary employment capacity, I would have handled everything like it was a regular call for service and go on to the next one. But when I did that secondary employment, I started building those relationships, understanding what issues were affecting bus operators, what was affecting the cleaners at Union Station. These little things that may seem small to a police department in a city directly affect operations. If we're having an issue on a bus and that bus is parked for 30 minutes for an officer to get there, you now have destroyed people's connections for the rest of their day. I was able to understand that early on in my career, so that when I came over here, I already knew the challenges and what needed to be done.

You were named Acting Co-Chief of Police and Emergency Management in July 2024 and assumed sole responsibility for the department in February. Under your leadership, RTD has implemented a four-step action plan focused on visibility, customer education, fare enforcement and technology. What should employees and the public know about this plan?

It’s a simplified plan. When I became the acting police chief in July 2024, the first thing I did was go to our officers. I went to roll calls and met with them to try to find out what they felt their role was here, what direction they thought they were going in. And a lot of them didn't really understand what they needed to do every day. A lot of them had that reactive municipality policing aspect, where they thought they were just going to handle calls. And I pretty much told them we're a proactive policing department. We know what issues are affecting us. We should know where they're affecting us. You should know ridership numbers, what times of day places are more populated, and go out there and proactively solve the issues that are affecting customers. We devised a plan of being more highly visible. Obviously, if you're standing out there, you can deter activity, no matter where you're at. Having that visibility is going to cause people's everyday reactions to change.

The customer Code of Conduct, Respect the Ride – a lot of our officers didn't understand it. They weren't really being taught it. It was the basis of their training but they weren't really implementing it, and I told them what a great tool it is. If someone has their feet up on a chair and their music is loud, that's an opportunity for you to go talk to them, explain to them how they need to respect their fellow customers. It also gives you a chance to interact and educate and not be called later. We don't want to be called when we have to do the enforcement, because that concept provides a negative perception about officers. We want our customers to be educated, and we want to build relationships with them.

The agency’s customers continue to express a desire for increased fare enforcement on RTD’s light rail lines. Do you share their concerns? Is fare evasion an issue on our system?

Revenue from customers is part of our budget. They need to pay fare. We do a lot of fare contacts. We average a 2% to 5% fare evasion rate depending on the times of day and areas we check. So it's not very large, but the perception is out there that nobody's paying. And once you get someone to believe that they don't need to pay, they're never going to pay again. We really need to keep people honest.

The ideal situation is our security and our officers should be on the trains. A component is checking fare, but they should be there for multiple reasons: deterrence, visibility, customer education and assistance. We have a lot of people that are taking trains and buses, and they don't know where to get off, they don't know what connecting point to take, they don’t know a restaurant that's around there. Our officers should be someone that people feel comfortable speaking to. They can build relationships with customers, because chances are you're going to see that person tomorrow or the day after, especially if they're using RTD every day for their needs.

The department has experienced notable leadership changes in recent months. How do you intend to address that fact?

We're kind of unique because we're a young department. A lot of our officers only have a couple of years on here at RTD, because that's when we started the growth. Leadership transitions naturally bring some anxiety and stress. Now that I’ve stepped into the role of Chief, I think it’s important for our team to know that I’m not new to this organization – I’ve been here for nine and a half years, and nearly 20 years in the field overall. My commitment is solid, and that stability is incredibly important, especially for officers who have joined us from other departments. They came here because they believed in the vision we’ve built together – that we’re growing into a premier enforcement agency. I believe my leadership will reinforce that trust. I’ll continue to show up, be visible in the field and lead by example. That kind of presence and consistency will go a long way in supporting our team.

RTD-PD operates a complex, sector-based model for RTD’s system that relies on a growing number of Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST)-certified officers, security guards and officers from jurisdictions within the agency’s 2,300-plus-mile service district. Is the current mix of personnel suitably deployed, or should the approach taken to safety and security continue to change?

We broke up the sectors more so because of our geographical area and have areas of responsibility. Right now, we’re relying on a lot of crime data, customer input, employee input to understand where the real issues are. Hopefully we'll get to a point where we have enough officers to have sector integrity. One thing we don't want to be is static in implementing a system and saying, OK, that's what we're going to do. It's ever-changing, especially with us. A new subdivision pops up, for example, and now we have more ridership in a certain area that we never had before. That's the kind of issue that sector-based policing is designed for, to understand that area, find out what changes are happening, reach out to the partnerships and then work collaboratively with those municipalities to handle situations.

RTD last week announced a nearly 60 percent reduction in security-related calls and a three-year decrease in reports of criminal activities at Denver Union Station. How did this happen, and why does it matter?

I believe the reason why it's happening is that high visibility, having our officers out there walking around, getting out of their cars and deterring situations. It used to be that a situation would happen, then we'd have to be reactive, get there, take the report. Now, by being proactive, being out there, contacting individuals, mitigating those issues, we're seeing the decreases because we're on scene right away. If you have an area where you have a lot of traffic accidents, for example, you could go and take that accident report every day, or you could go out there and find out the reason. If it's speeding, you go out there with your radar detector and the next thing you know, you're not going to have any accidents. If we know areas are experiencing issues, we want to be out there mitigating them.

There's a huge perception of public transportation not being safe. A lot of companies and organizations are trying to bring workers back, and a lot of them are stating that they don't feel they can get to the workplace in a safe manner. The perception is that everyone thinks something's going to happen to them when they get on a train or a bus, and what we're showing is that's not true.

We're understanding where the issues are and trying to reduce incidents. In February, the ratio of security-related calls for service per customer boarding was about 1 in 1,800 individuals. We have 4 million to 5 million boardings a month. That's a lot of people. There are things that are going to happen, but realistically the calls for service and incidents are very low for someone's daily commute.

Under your leadership and in alignment with other law enforcement agencies in the region, Transit Police has begun compiling and publishing monthly security-related reports. Why are you focused on transparently sharing such metrics with the public, and what do the data tell you at this moment?

There are several reasons. Obviously, transparency builds trust. If you're honest with people, you tell them exactly what is happening in our system. It’s going to be a huge positive. It also lets us control the narrative. We don't want people assuming things that are happening without knowing the facts, data and everything else involved. By giving those numbers, showing how safe we are, what we're doing to implement these measures, and providing webpages and other resources, it allows somebody to do the research for themselves and understand that they can take public transportation and nothing is going to happen to them.

The data's showing that we are very safe, and a lot of our issues are more quality-of-life issues. There are some higher numbers in relation to drug usage, and that's very common with decriminalization and a lot of the drug laws. But with actual assaults – or some of the ones that people are more concerned about – it is very rare that happens to somebody that's not directly associated with the aggressor.

Your observations about customer needs led to the creation of the country’s first mental health co-responder unit in transit policing, which pairs a mental health clinician with a police officer on patrol. Data from this approach helped identify the need to add a coordinator for the unhoused. You have brought together peer transit agencies to learn from one another as part of a national working group for vulnerable populations. What have you learned about how to properly assist such individuals? What is RTD’s responsibility in doing so?

There were a couple things we learned. One is in the past, people were trying to arrest their way out of this problem, and we learned that was a detriment to the individuals that are experiencing these medical episodes. And by putting somebody in a situation that is going to impede their mental health issues, having them subjected to a criminal offense or jail escalated the issues that they were facing. What we found was it's a medical issue.

RTD’s involvement in the very beginning was a tough sell, because we were under the philosophy that we just transported people from point A to point B, and we really weren't concerned about what happened once they left our property or our vehicles. Realizing that these individuals need our services, we found that being a partner within those communities and trying to assist these individuals was a huge, huge positive. Outreach by the unhoused navigators has been extremely helpful in regard to our encampments. We get a lot of encampments along our rail lines, so those individuals are going to cross our tracks, which now could lead to personal safety issues, but also to issues that could be placed on our operators: near misses or, God forbid, they hit somebody. That is something that you don't just wake up the next day and go to work after.

Putting those resources with the police officers has been instrumental in providing personal safety as well as a better environment for everybody. You see that this is commonplace in transit agencies throughout America and Canada. A lot of people are experiencing the same societal issues, which is sad to hear, but as long as we continue to work together, maybe we can find a solution that works for everybody.

Despite RTD-PD’s aggressive growth, some people continue to say they didn’t know that RTD has a police department. What do you make of this, and how do you overcome this misperception?

RTD’s communications team has been doing great in putting out a lot of information about the great things that we continue to do. With the chief’s selection, that whole process reached a lot of media as well. I think our name continues to get out there, and hopefully in a positive way. We've had some negative stories that we hope to overcome. The onus with a lot of this is going to be placed on my shoulders.

There's a lot of community events, HOA and business meetings, neighborhood groups. Moving forward, our commanders that are in charge of our sectors, as well as our officers, are going to be expected to be more present at these types of activities to get our name out there. Working with the municipalities, one thing that I found in the past is a municipality might go to a public event and blame RTD for a lot of issues within their area, and we've never had a voice to respond. We are going to make sure that we're present so we can give a voice to RTD, have them know who RTD-PD is and give them a summarization of who we are, our capabilities and our action plan moving forward.

You are known to many people, having lived and worked in Colorado for close to 30 years, graduated from the FBI National Academy, and begun your law enforcement career as a cadet with the New York Police Department. For those who have not met you, what should they know about who you are as a person and the approach you take to law enforcement?

My integrity and my accountability and building trust are huge foundations of my life. I want them to understand my commitment to RTD, the commitment to the agency, the One RTD philosophy and a welcoming transit environment, knowing that I'm going to do everything I can to work with them. RTD is a part of all their communities. I'm not going to be one of those individuals leading by keyboard or giving out assignments through emails. I'm going to be present. I'm going to be out in the public. My goal is to continue to reach out. There have been a lot of changes in law enforcement leadership throughout our metropolitan area. I will be meeting with them, building those relationships, seeing how we could better partner together. And I feel after they listen to me, they're going to know that I'm going to be committed to assisting them, and I would expect the same from them to me.

At the end of the day, becoming the chief has been a milestone in my career, but it has been an effort that is about more than one person. With all the contacts I've made internally here at RTD, I feel that I treat everyone the same, and I will continue to do that in my new role. I want everyone to know that even though I have been promoted, I am still the same person to reach out to. If you're having an issue and you don't feel you're getting a response from our police department, please let me know and I'll make sure that we correct that, because we are a police department within a public transportation agency. We're just one of the components to make RTD work. We are not siloed, and we never should be. And I just want to make sure that everyone knows that we're going to work as a team here.