BART director got concealed gun permit, cites risk from activists

A member of BART’s board of directors has a license to carry a concealed handgun in public after telling authorities his role as an elected official requires him to decide “controversial issues” and that he particularly fears violence by Black Lives Matter activists, public records show.

[...] in a series of renewal applications with the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, he cited protests that stemmed from the fatal BART police shooting of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009, including a riot in downtown Oakland and an incident in April 2009 in which a man threw paint on then-General Manager Dorothy Dugger during a board meeting.

“As an elected official, I am often the decision maker and focal point on controversial issues,” McPartland wrote in his latest renewal application on April 20, 2015.

McPartland said BART meetings are relatively secure, with police officers on hand and visitors’ bags checked, but that outside the boardroom he and his colleagues are highly recognizable by potentially irrational, outraged and/or unstable members of the public.

The Sheriff’s Office, which issues the permits, has criteria that must be met by a person wishing to carry a concealed gun including a “documented, presently existing, clear and present danger to life, or great bodily harm.”

Capt. Shawn Petersen, who heads the sheriff’s Internal Affairs division, said applications go through a “multilayered” review and are examined by him, the undersheriff and the sheriff, who has final approval.

State law requires residents to show “good cause” to carry a concealed pistol or revolver, while leaving permit issuance up to the sheriffs, who records show are far more likely to issue them in rural than in urban counties.

McPartland is one of 222 permit-holders in Alameda County, a roster that includes law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors and ordinary citizens, according to data from the California Department of Justice Firearms Bureau.

Gun rights advocates are arguing for the right of any law-abiding adult to carry a hidden firearm in public in California, one of a handful of states that allow local governments to deny concealed-weapons permits.

The protester who flung red paint at BART’s general manager after the police shooting of Oscar Grant at Fruitvale Station said it was an act of protest, not violence, and was no justification for an elected official to arm himself.

“To try to cite that, kids’ paint thrown at a meeting, as an act of violence is ridiculous,” said Gabriel Meyers, 36, who served a brief jail sentence and now lives in Sacramento.