2 Badly Hurt in Robbery Attempt at Green Line Station

Two people were reported near death after a botched robbery attempt Sunday on the Green Line platform at the busy Rosa Parks station in Willowbrook, disrupting east-west rail traffic for hours, authorities said.

A dispute broke out on the platform at 2:50 p.m. between two teenagers, apparently would-be robbers, and a man in his 50s, according to a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. In moments, the man was stabbed and one teenager was shot, the spokesman said. The second teenager escaped on foot.

Details were not available as authorities conducted an investigation into the night at the scene. A Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman said both wounded people were near death hours later at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center. The Sheriff’s Department had no information Sunday night about the circumstances of the attack or the identities of those involved.

The teenager wounded by gunfire apparently walked to the hospital, leaving a trail of blood down the stairs from the passenger loading platform, the MTA spokesman said.

One witness, a 38-year-old Hawthorne woman, said she saw the shooting.

“I was waiting for the train when I saw two men arguing,” she said. “I don’t know what started it, but one guy was shot, and the guy he was arguing with was stabbed. There was a lot of commotion and people started running. I just wanted to stay away from it.”

The incident is believed to be the most serious crime committed on any of the MTA’s rail lines.

The MTA almost immediately stopped trains on the Green Line, which runs a 20-mile route from Norwalk on the east to Manhattan Beach on the west.

Passengers on the eastern portion of the line were taken off trains, then driven by bus to the Rosa Parks station, where they could transfer to a Blue Line train, or farther on to the Green Line’s Avalon station.