Artis Hampshire-Cowan is afraid to use her nearest Metro station

If your local Metro station makes you a bit wary for your safety, you're not alone: A WMATA board member basically told everyone to avoid her local station.

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Artis Hampshire-Cowan is one of the Prince George's members on the Metro board. Her nearest stop is Largo Town Center, which she has started to avoid.

"[B]ecause of some of the things that have been reported [at Largo], we are not using that station," she told WTOP. "I don't think (my family) is unique because as I speak to others riding Metro, they too have changed their patterns, as most informed people do."

Hampshire-Cowan contended that "Metro is safe," a claim supported by its latest security report (pdf), which states the probability of being a victim of a "Part 1" crime — aggravated assault, burglary, homicide, larceny, car theft or attempted car theft, rape and robbery — is 5.75 in a million. But Largo is home to a whopping 22 of the 487 Part 1 crimes listed in the report, nearly 5 percent of the total (there are 86 stations; if Part 1 crimes were equally distributed, there'd be 5.6 at each). Of course, you may as well avoid all Prince George's County stations — eight of the 10 highest-crime Metro stations are in the county.

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