. tonight on kqed newsroom, a horrifying stabbing on left a teenager dead. we'll talk to b.a.r.t.'s police ap transit system. on the regn former d ciarector joins us to discuss russia, tensions with iran, and othse national urity concerns. plus the week's top political developments including the latest deadline to reunify famheies separated at border. hello and welcome to kqedws om. we begin with security on the bay area's rapid transit system b.a.r.t. john lee cowell has been charged with murder in last sunday's fatal stabing of 18 mia wilson and the attempted murder of her older sister. police are still investigating the motive behind the attack which took place at the b.a.r.t station in oakland.

protesters took to the streets angry and worri that the stabbing of two young black women was racially motivated. b.a.r.t. is under fire about not sharingnformation that resulted in fatalities raising concern about security and transparency. joining me now is b.a.r.t.'s police chief. chiefs, nice to have you here. >> thank you for having me. good >>morning. there are questions about whether b.a.r.t. is safe. re you making any security changing in wake of the stabbing that happened? >> yes, absolutely. what we've seen over time is that our crime has actuallyt the saate as last year, so our crime hasn't gone up but we had these three horrible incidents so we are increasing or patrols throughout the systea in theons and on the trains. >> when you say increasing patrols, what does thatean? it's my understanding your force is currently 25 officers short of what is budgeted for. so what are you doing in that regard? >> sure. we do have 25 vacancies and we are going very aggressive in recruiting. when i came here year ago we had over 40 vacancies, and we

drop today to 25 but we still need to fill ose. we've been using overtime to get our officers in the stations and on thens tr to supplement the officers that are on the workday. scheduled >> so prior from what you and your deputies have said, you had one officer for every two to three stations. there are 48 b.a.r. stations. with these changes you're putting in place now, how many y officers d have patrolling per station and for how long? >> well, of course it will vary. time of day, day of ek. we also look at the hot spots in the area and the calls r service. so it could be anywhere between 25 to 40 officers at any given time, but also we want to focus in the areas at are eith generating more calls for service or the ones that are problematic with quality of life issues that are making riders feel unsafe. >> which areas would those be >> our busiest stations are san francisco and the oakland stations for clls for service. but we've got to make sure as a

regional police department that we have aquate coverage and attention throughout all four countieshat we serve. >> do you think these changes that you're making are enough to keep riders safe? >> well, we are definitely continuing our hiring fort. need to hire more police officers to continue to increase safety. i think we're on the right track. there are tips that we give to our rider to make sure that they can do something to help in the effort of making b.a.r.t. as safe as possible. >> what are some of those tips? at would you advise people? >> one of the problems we do have throughout the system areh the cell thefts. we really encourage folks to keep their laptops and the cell phones secured when they're coming up to stations. to be aware of their avoid dings, to try to sleeping while on the train. and oftentimes, you know there's an age where opportunity makes the thief and we don't want to give those opportunities to individuals that are looking to take

advantage of people. >> i think what has the most national attention right now are the violent crimes, particularly sunday's stabbing. you mentioned earlier that crime has not really risea. on t. over the past year, but did you look at state department of justice figures over a decade, they show that violent crimes on b.a.r.t. has actually increased by nearly 70% over the past decade. this happened at a time when such crimes fell 7% across california. what do you think accounts for this rise in violent crime on b.a.r.t.? >> well, truly the three past incidents have been categorized as homicides arereally an anomaly in our system. we don't see that level ofnc viol but what we have seen over time have been the phone snatches which are documented as violent crimes. when force or fear is used to take somebody else's cell phone. but inerms of these recent violent crimes that occurred definitely an anomaly. not something we have seen in the past. that's why we're very proud took the prompt actions that we

did to bring two of tsp three ts into custody. >> b.a.r.t. has been, since you mentioned those two other assaults, b.a.r.t. has been cticized for lack of transparency including on those two assaults in addition to the, sunday stabbhis was on top of other lapses, decoy cameras that didn't work, failing to inform the public of a takeover robbery by a mob of juveniles. how do you respond to concerns that b.a.r.t. is not open and honest with the public about these things? >> well, first of all, i do want to address the two incidents that occurred because i was not here during thoserevious incidents. but what i can tell you on thosi two nts, we have had to wait for an autopsy to determine the cause of death on one incidents and on the other one the person wasn't -- did not pass away until sunday. so literally it was a timing issue where the verye next day put out the information on all three homicides. within a very short period of time all that went out to the public.

so i believe that isransparent and you also need to give time for the investigative process to wo through and to make sure that we're providing accurate information to thec. pub >> fair enough. you've been on the job for only about a year now, so you're right, the other things happened before your tenure. given what has happenednd given the ongoing public concerns, are you planning any additional changes in the reporting out of crimes on b.a.r.t.? >> well, we're constantly looking at how we can improve that. we d have a public log that people can sign in to. also have cri mapping.com which is very common in the is cing industry which automatically feeds from our computer-aided dispatch system to the internetand anybody with internet access can take a look at that as> well. ve you had any conversations with the family of neal wihoon, the young woman died in the stabbing on sunday? >> i've had conversations with their spokes people and left a message for the father and obviously they're going through a very difficult time

and -- >> what did you say? >> just expressing myco dolences not only on my behalf but on behalf of the men aen of the b.a.r.t. police department. it's a very tragic incident. >> tstre have been some pro and marches and some members of the community who feel the attack was racially motivated. mr. cowell the suspect is white. the two women who were stabbed or black. what would youto say those who have these concerns about whether the attack was raciall motivated? >> well, you know, i'm definitely sensitive to that i just want to say that up to this point we haven't found a connection to say that it was racially motivated, but it's not ifmething that we take off the table. nformation does come to light that it was racially motivated, we will get that itormation to the distr attorney's office immediately and they can decide whether a hate crime would be appropriate to be filed. >> just realy, quic we have about 15 seconds, what more do you need from city, county andf state als to improve safety on b.a.r.t., your number one wish?

>> i think it's a collaborative effort. we need to work in a positive way and really support stability amongst all to ma safer. >> all right. b.a.r.t. police chief, we thank you for your time today. >> thank you very much. now to international affairs, on wednesday secretary of state mike pompeo faced tough questions from lawmakers on capitol hill. pompeo tried to assure lawmaks that u.s. policies toward russia had not changed. but it was unablevi to pro details on the private meeting that took place between president trump aussian president vladimir putin in helsinki. meanwhile the white house announced it would postpone a second summit withl putin unt after the midterm election. earlier this week tensions re exightened between the u.s. and iran by anange of threats between mr. trump and iranian president rouhani. for a perspective on th and other foreign policy developments, we're joined by leon panetta.

secrttary pa always nice to have you with us. >> nice to be with you. >> there are reportshat pecial counsel robert mueller bs now looking into tweets from president trumpt attorney general jeff sessions and also former fbi director james mey. and then separately federal investigatorshave asked to interview alan weisselberg, the chief financial roof for the trump organization. what is your reaction to all these developments this week? >> i think it's an indication that bob mueller is rinching that in his investigation where he is looking pretty closely at the rpresident. wiards to issues of obstruction and probably issues of collusion as well. i think the tweets, obviously looking the tweets, think the purpose of that is to determine whether or not you cat pullether an obstruction case based on those tweet i think clearly looking at his finance guy relates to tracking

the money and whether any of that money leads to russia. >> and i wanted to also ask you about th week's senate hearing where secretary of state mike pompeo said that president trump has taken tough actions against russia. what is your assessment of that statement? >> i thought that mike pompeo's testimony really presented a disconnect. he on one hand talked about u.s. policy being against gssia, beor nato, for our allies. b ricallyflecting i think more traditional positions in terms of the united states. but at the same time, you have a president who basicaly speaks against those very positions. t lks and criticizes nato. he criticizes our allies. when he stood up with putin,e h said trusts the russians more than he trusts our own intelli wnce agenciesh

regards to election interference. so there's a very great disconnect here and it creates lot of confusion not only for our allies in the world, but also for ourselves. >> and you touch on a point i wanted to ask you about which is en he doubted his own intelligence community's conclusion that russia had interfered in the 2016. electi your former cia director. what was your reaction to >> very concerned when the president speaks in aha way undermines the credibility of the intelligence that's provided to the president. when he does that those that are putting their life on the line to gather that intelligence worry about whether or ret their bility is being questioned. and so it does impact on their morale approximat morale. >> and does that undermining also continue when the president is doing things like threatening

to revoke thecurity clearance of former officials who hadow criticized he handled the h helsii talks? >> absolutely. for the president revoking a security clearanbe notuse someone has violated that security clearance and revealed classified informator engaged in some kind of behavior that abuses that particular security clearance. the reason he's doingt is because he doesn't like what people are saying about him or his policies. and that goes against the grain of what this country is all about. thisountry is built on free speech, the ability to say what you think, and the fact is to have a president who tak retribution out on those he doesn't like because of what say. i think not only abuses his power with regards to security clearances, it goes against the amental free speech, a principle that is so important

to our democracy. eek president trump had an exchange of words with president rouhani. what kind of impact do you think that is having in both countries? >> we're at a difficult place now with iran. the president basically tore up the agreement on nuclear development by iran. it was the one agreement that all the parties agreed with restraininiran from moving forward with developing a nuclear weapon. that agreement from the united states's point of view is out the window an so the question now becomes how arein we g to deal with iran? we've engaged now in a war of words. prident rouhani criticizing president trump. it could lead to some kind of confrontation. on the other hand, the hope is hat it might lead to some kind of negotiation. but i think we are going to see a period of tremendous

volatility ahead of us and the relationship with iran. >> in speaking with volatilityl and n programs, this week secretary of state pompeo also acknowlged for the first time that north korea is continuing to produce nuclear fuel. that runs counter to the administration's claims that it was making ogress on the denuclearization of north korea. how concerned are you about this revelation from secretary wempeo? >> l, i'm very concerned, because it only confirms that we have yet to receiveh from no korea any kind of real commitment, verifiable, enforceable commitment to eliminate their nuclear weans and engage in denuclearization. the summit meeting was kind of a pr event, but when the balloon and a the confetti went away, the reality is we have yet to

stepsrth korea take any with regards to eliminating their nuclear capability. and so it is -- it remains i think as opposed to what tid prnt said, it still remains a serious nuclear threat to thea united stat to the world. >> all right. secretary panetta, thank you foe your >> thank you. continuing with politi and their impact on california, thursday was the deadline for the feder government to comply with a court order to reunite families separated under the trump administration's zero tolerance immigration policy. government officials say about 1,400 childrend were returt of 2,500 children who were taken from thr parents but there are reports of failed reunification that's raisinguestions about whether the deadline hadn b met. meanwhile a full blown tariff war appears to be averted for now. it's unclear how california will benefit from $12 billion in

emergency aid to help u.s. farmers affecd by the new tariffs. tere with me to discuss with political repo marissa lagos, and political senior writer carla ma carl from a republican perspective, you just heard what secretary panetta had to say about the russia investigation and secretary pompeo's testimony. what is your reaction to all of that? >> i think there is a distance here. the secretary raises an interesting point. on the one han the administration is conducting policy toward russia in a way's tha relatively consistent with previous republican administrations, arguably touger than therevious administration with respect to sanctions in a few other areas. then you have the rhetoricfr coming the administration and particularly from the president. less so the administration. i think secretary pompeo, secretary mattis haveeen very clear. john bolton's been very clear regarding what they believe the u.s.ar posture t russia should be. the president is the one i think who has sent mxed messages.

so if this administration wants to get on the same page, it starts at the top. ultimately it's the approximate the and his rhetoric that need to addressed. >> it is so interesting because we've seen so many breaks with protocol in so many wayrewith thisdent but in particular this meeting one-on-one with ngadimir putin only havheir translators in the room, not having anybody from his cap cabinet, so it's hard to know if secretary pompeo knows what else was said. >> we sawo alongside james mattis this week at stanford, at hoov institution. he seemed uncomfortable. he bristled at questions about what exactly went on in that meeting. herankly seems maybe out of the loop in terms of what happened. and i think the administrationh problems when the press secretary answers the question about whether ambassadors could calledp by russia to answer questions. they dn't seem to defend him. those kind of issues raise huge

questio as to what exactly the policy is on russia and how tough they are going to be. it seemed like the president blinks by canceling that meeting in november with putin. >> that's not p the onlynt of ernfusion. i want to talk intinental ballistic missile gra-- talk ab immigration too. the reuni cation offamilies, what's the deadline for reunifyingpaamilies sted at the border, met or not? >> i think you could argue both sides and i think that's what's happening in court. the question also is what can the judge do i it's not. i think what we've seen is the administration, you know, i think we shoul give them credit for making a good faithffrt for getting those 900 families back together but the question now is espeeally what about people that did get deported. i think that's where a lot of the debate isng happenn the courtroom is over what parents agree to, whether they understood what they were agreeing to, if they signed and said we don't want our children back. clearly this is not an issue

that gotrappedp with a bow on thursday. i think the judge has n seemed eager and neither has the aclu quite frany who sued to impose sanctions or tried to jail administration officials. the's really not a lot they can do. so i think the question is now he's been very think thoughtful and tried to take this sort of one issue at a time, so this is going to continue to play hiout. >> i that this is a very difficult issue, but i think it highlights again the challenge immigration policy and where we end up when there isn't a broader effort et immigration right. i think you've seen this in the congress many times now. forts to try and advance immigration legislation failing. you've had the president on different sides of the issue. so i think that the challenge here is going to be this issue is going to continue. untile immigration system gets fixed, we are going toee continue tohese kinds of crises develop. we saw one under the obama administration. this one comes from the trump it's because congress has not

filled the void. >> i think the issuecss the opof this whole story, the stories of -- personal stories of paren being ripped away from their kids. recognizindren not their parent. >> you're seeing the videos every day and you've got about 473 ki now who are still not brought back together with their parents who have been deported. there are ques about whether that can go on for months more. this is a story that is g t go go away. these headlines aren't. although i think the administration and the president himself often distracts with his s that, but the fact there are a lot of groups, human rights groups watching this and this as we go toward novembe i think this is an issue that plays. >> and it shouldn't go away because these are real ople. these children -- i just cannot even imagine as a parent what ir must be like the parents or these young kids. uations, hese are si trauma that will play out for the rest of their lives. differencethe between the unacompanied minors and this, the trump

administration rolled out a policy and then decided later to figure out what it when you're talking about real human lives it does have meaning. of course, this i part of the ole immigration debate. >> how do you think this immigration issue will play out at the pol come november? the republicans i would think would want to keep the focus on an economic message. you have new numbers out saying in the second quarter economic growth topped 4%. those are pretty good numbers. so how will that all comeout and what role will immigration play as voters go to the polls? >> i think there's a two-part strategy. on the one hand when you go into a midtermelection, the one thing you need is a motivated base. if you do not he a motivated base, you are not going to do well. immigration is an issue. plays to the republican base. it's an issue republicans care deeply about. motivating the base is one piece.ce the other p is how do you appeal to independent voter for those swingwe districts like have several here in california

that are swing distrts and i y you appeal to them is an economic pitch. the strong economy is something president trmp returned to today. he probably does get some credit for an economy that's growing at a significant clip. it's a two part strategy both of which i think they'll eck cuxeco hold on to the house and senate. >> we talk about how quickly things move.ar it's to say what we'll be talking about in october and early november. th particular slicef immigration debate doesn't stand ar motivate people in the same way ther ones when you talk about republicans because there are a lot of republicans very horrified by what happened and i think that does run the risk of turning off some of the more independent or moderate republican voters. we had on political breakdown a m in california with a dozen or so people on the ground for the democrats and i think what t

you hear from is of course they're going to talk about that but they want to talk about health care. they want to talk other e.sues that reson each district is difference. >> this is an issue that can play in those races. they have talked about promising immration reform measures, but they're being upended by conservative republicans in washington who want verify and otherissues. this is a fight that's going to go on all the way and could affect the house races. >> i want to also talk abouti tariffs you. the u.s. and the european union have now agreed to hold off on any further tariffs and work on eliminating others. california farmers alreadyto startingee some effects from other tariffs. >> that'sig. kevin mccarthy, the house majority leader is really sort of in the focus here because he's right there in the vantral ey where you're talking about farmers that produce almonds, citrus, that go to the

european union, chna and mexico. those are our big trading partners. they're not going to get any big pie of that $12 billion aid which by the way is not popular with a lot of republicans. they're calling it gold plate it is welfare for some of thesefa ers. this is going to be the issue here is how much doarrs not only here in california but in other places where trump and the blicans are going to need the support come november. >> if we think about ways that the republicans couln step their own economic message, it seems to me the imposition ofar fs would probably be the worst thing they could do. you talk about thin slow the economy as we look toward the end o 2018 and 2019, the end of tariffsifcould be siant especially as we get toward the end of the year and any positive benefit from thes tariffs washed away. and we begin to see us come off he sugar high from the tax cuts, how does that affect the

economy going forward. these are big issues politi lly. >> foe time being, though, the tariffs seem to be part of a pattern that keeps emerging. utesident trump says or does somethinggeous and walks back from it. the tariffs, nato, putin summit. do you see this constant cycle of statement, retraction, then undermining the retraction as part of a large strategy? >> this goes to his major profile is a great demaker. and yet as you said, he throws things out and retracts. some of the trump people are saying now on this tariffs well -- >> we got what we wanted, right? >> right. so it really depends on what perspective you're coming from. you're absolutely right, this is part of the narrative of trump and yet we've seen this sort of walk back every time. >> i think this goes to the question that we've been debating which is trump's base versus the larger republican party and what matters more. i think you're right. there's some dog whistling there

in the sense that you say something ageous, but maybe your base loves it. then you walk it back t acquiesce to republicans in congress and other voters, but the question is what does that mean at theolls and how many people did you turn off with with that l thing, initial message who were maybe more swing? voter it remains to be seen. >> i asked you guys about wildfires. big problem in california right now. there are multiple wdfires. yosemite had to be shut down. firefighters have died. people were evacuated in redding. now state lawmakers are weighing the tough question of who should foot the bill for fires caused by equipment belonging to pg & e. >> the governor came out with a proposal that seeks to change the california law that allows utilities to be held responsible for damage their equipmentc sed even if they weren't negligent. if they followed all the rules but they still caused a fire. it's a big sticking point. the utilities have been lobbying heavcay in thetal and the

court of public opinion. they don't like this poposal. folk on the other side like homeowners and insurerste it. maybe it's a sweet-spot. they have until the end of august to wrap it up. >> all right. thank you all. >> thank you. that will do it for us. as always, you find more of our coverage at kqed.org/newsroom. thank you for joining us.

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