Multiple Metro Stabbings Exacerbate Safety Woes

LOS ANGELES, CA — A pair of Metro stabbings within hours of each other Monday night highlighted the ongoing safety crisis plaguing public transportation in Los Angeles County.

A woman was reportedly stabbed while riding an elevator up to the Metro Green Line Station in South Los Angeles less than two hours after a group of youths stabbed a teenager during a robbery on a bus in Glendale, according to police.

Two youths were arrested in the bus stabbing, and the Metro Green Line attacker remained at large Tuesday.

The first stabbing occurred on a Metro bus just after 7 p.m. Monday near West Los Feliz Road and South Central Avenue in Glendale.

According to various reports, three juvenile suspects approached the victim, a teenage boy, and attempted to steal his backpack. The victim was stabbed during the attempted robbery and the suspects ran away from the scene, but officers from the Glendale Police Department caught two of the suspects.

A search was continuing for the third suspect.

About two hours later, a woman was stabbed at a Metro C (Green) Line station at South Vermont Avenue and the Glenn Anderson (105) Freeway. The victim was taken to a hospital in unknown condition, and the suspect -- a man wearing all black -- got away by boarding a westbound train toward Hawthorne, authorities said.

The attacks are the latest incidents of violence plaguing the Metro transit system. The spate of violence included the fatal stabbing of a woman aboard a train in the Studio City area last month and a series of attacks targeting bus drivers -- prompting many of them to stage a "sick out" last month to demand more security.

Last week, security guards shot and killed a stabbing suspect during an altercation at the Vermont/Sunset B Line station.

The incident began on a B Line train when a passenger pressed an emergency alarm button, which caused the train to stop before it reached the station, according to Metro.

The man ran off the train and into a non-public area of the Vermont/Sunset station. An altercation between the man and security guards followed: The guards used pepper spray on the man, the man stabbed one of the guards in the leg, and the guard "fired a weapon in self-defense," striking the man, according to a Metro release.

"The trespasser did not survive his injuries," the statement continues.

Metro's Board of Directors on April 29 approved an emergency procurement declaration to speed up acquisition and installation of protective barriers for drivers on about 2,000 buses due to the "sudden, unexpected increased severity of assaults on operators."

The board also pushed for a review of other potential safety improvements, including an examination of measures such as securing all transit station entrances and exits, increasing security cameras on the system and making use of facial recognition technology.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Chris Lindahl contributed to this report.