Apr 9, 2009 8:24 pm US/Pacific
Protester Hits BART GM With Red Paint At Meeting
OAKLAND (CBS 5 / KCBS / AP / BCN) ―
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BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger.
BART
A Bay Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors meeting came to an abrupt end Thursday when a protester threw red paint at the agency's general manager.
Police said 31-year-old Gabriel Meyers of Citrus Heights was immediately arrested, handcuffed and escorted from the boardroom where the incident occurred about 10:40 a.m.
He was booked on two counts of battery, one count of disrupting a meeting and one count of resisting arrest.
Witnesses said Meyers appeared agitated before throwing the paint at BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger and Deputy General Manager Marcia deVaughn.
There were nearly two dozen protesters at the meeting, demanding the resignation and firing of Dugger and BART Police Chief Gary Gee.
Protest organizers claimed the man was not part of their group, known as "No Justice, No BART."
BART board meetings have been the target of protesters since the New Year's Day shooting death of Oscar Grant III by a BART police officer.
Board President Thomas Blalock was in shock after the paint throwing incident and said the transit agency was doing all it could in the Grant case, but emphasized that the agency must undergo "a process."
The board's meeting was temporarily adjourned to allow BART staff to clean up the red paint on Dugger's chair and on the floor.
Dugger appeared shaken when she left the boardroom, but did not appear to be harmed. Some of the paint also splattered on BART Director James Feng, but there were no reports of any injuries.
The board was originally scheduled to discuss possible fare increases to help reduce the transit system's projected $54 million deficit when the meeting was disrupted.
Directors wound up postponing their budget discussion for two weeks.
Dugger told reporters after the meeting's conclusion that she would be proposing a 10 percent fare hike to take effect July 1.
"We're always extremely sensitive to the customer impact of fare increases," she said, but added that a 10 percent fare hike should only have "a minor impact" on BART's ridership - which has already declined slightly in recent months due to the struggling economy.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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