MTA Official Left Old Job Under a Cloud

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new head of security is a former police chief from Washington state who resigned amid accusations that he had obstructed the arrest of a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair.

Stan Reeves, former police chief of Vancouver, Wash., was never charged with wrongdoing after an investigation into the incident, though officials said he had used “poor judgment.”

Reeves, whose first day of work at the MTA was Monday, will oversee all aspects of security at the agency as chief of transit police, a new post.

MTA’s deputy CEO, John Catoe, said he feels strongly that, despite the controversy that embroiled Reeves last summer, the new chief is the right man for the job. “I look at him from an experience standpoint,” Catoe said. “My concern about the allegations is zero.”

As part of the MTA’s revamped security plan, Reeves will help oversee officers deployed by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The two agencies are contracted by the MTA to provide security for the county’s bus and rail system.

Reeves will also be responsible for implementing the MTA’s anti-terrorist plan and running the agency’s force of about 100 officers, who mainly guard MTA buildings.

Reeves is employed under a conditional offer as the agency completes a state-required background check, according to Catoe. He is slated to make $140,000 a year.

Reeves’ tenure as head of the 206-officer police department in Vancouver, a city of about 50,000 near Portland, Ore., ended in a maelstrom. The controversy stemmed from a May 2001 traffic stop involving a woman with whom he acknowledged having had an affair, according to an investigative report released by the Washington State Patrol and an interview with the chief criminal prosecutor in the Washington attorney general’s office.

Investigators found that Reeves intervened in the traffic stop -- arriving at the site where the woman had been pulled over, taking her from an officer and driving her away. But they cleared Reeves of wrongdoing.

Washington’s chief criminal prosecutor, Brian Moran, said the woman’s blood alcohol level had been .08, right at the legal limit in Washington, and an arrest would not have been mandatory.

“The bottom line here is there was some bad judgment involved on the chief’s part,” Moran said. “But there was nothing clearly prosecutable.”

Nearly a year after the incident, it was reported in the press and the probe resulted. Reeves resigned in May, the day the investigation was announced. Reeves, 52, told officials he was quitting for health reasons.

Catoe said he believes Reeves has the skills needed to oversee the transit agency’s security, particularly because of his background providing contract security at the University of Oregon, where he served as director of public safety before going to Vancouver. Reeves also worked for 17 years for the Eugene, Ore., police department.

Reeves takes his new position as the MTA is involved in protracted contract negotiations, expected to wrap up by next summer, with the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department. LAPD officials have expressed the worry that Reeves’ new post might have too much power over the department’s officers.