BART Staff Wrote That Crime Videos of Minority Suspects Would Perpetuate False Stereotypes

Claim: San Francisco transit refused to release crime surveillance videos because it would make people racist

Verdict: True.

• The post: The X post from @MomsPostingLs (May 14, 2026) posted a Daily Wire graphic dated July 12, 2017, by Amanda Prestigiacomo. The headline reads "San Fran Transit: We Refuse To Release Crime Surveillance Videos Because It Will Make People Racist." The italic line under it quotes releasing videos "would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains."

• The agency: The system is Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), a regional rail district serving San Francisco, Oakland, and other Bay Area cities. There is no transit agency named "San Fran Transit." The Daily Wire headline is a paraphrase of BART's position, not a press release BART issued under that wording.
• The videos: In spring and summer 2017 BART refused to release surveillance video of at least three group robberies: about 40 to 60 youths boarding at Coliseum Station on April 22 and robbing passengers; a four-person assault and phone theft at Dublin on June 28; and a June 30 Coliseum phone snatching by a group of about a dozen teenagers. KPIX reported BART had turned over video for none of those incidents.
• What a board member said she was told: BART Director Debora Allen told KPIX the agency's explanation for staying tight-lipped was:

• Those exact words are Allen's account of what staff told her. They are not a sentence in the July 7, 2017 memo KPIX printed in full. The written record from Assistant General Manager of External Affairs Kerry Hamill is close, and it is on paper.
• The July 7 memo: Hamill wrote the board to defend BART's switch from emailed crime logs to CrimeMapping.com, and to explain why the district would not issue a press release on the June 30 theft. She called that incident a petty crime that would "paint an inaccurate picture of the BART system as crime-ridden." Then:

• Allen emailed Hamill the same day: "I don't understand what role the color of ones skin plays in this issue. Can you explain?" Hamill answered that afternoon. After describing racist voicemail and social-media reaction to the April Coliseum robbery, she wrote:

“If we were to regularly feed the news media video of crimes on our system that involve minority suspects, particularly when they are minors, we would certainly face questions as to why we were sensationalizing relatively minor crimes and perpetuating false stereotypes in the process.”

• She added that people could be "fully informed about crimes that occur on our system without being shown images that will inflame some members of the public." KPIX later reported that Hamill was the person who decided what crime information went public.
• The later story: When KPIX pressed her, Hamill said the reason BART had not released the three robbery videos was that the suspects were minors: "The statements that I made to the board members were that we don't release when it comes to minors." She also said "the word minor is definitely in the memo." KPIX checked the July 7 memo. It does not mention minors or anyone's age. "Minor" appears once, in the follow-up email, in the same sentence as "minority suspects." Spokesman Taylor Huckaby separately cited "Cal. Gov't Code 827.9" on juvenile police records, even though at least one person arrested in the April 22 attack was 19. The statute that matches that number is Welfare and Institutions Code section 827.9, and that section says it applies only to Los Angeles County.

• Board members Allen and Joel Keller both criticized Hamill's reasoning. Keller told the Mercury News the new way of reporting crimes was "very disappointing" and "We aren't being very transparent." BART's June 6, 2017 public announcement of CrimeMapping.com had billed the change as more transparency, not less.

In plain language:

Yes. BART withheld the 2017 robbery videos. The communications chief who decided what crime information went public wrote that feeding the media video of crimes involving minority suspects would perpetuate false stereotypes, and a board member said she was told release would create racial bias in riders against minorities. Staff later leaned on a juveniles explanation that was not in the original memo.