Police shoot stabbing suspect near Vermont/Beverly Metro station in East Hollywood
Los Angeles police shot and wounded a man suspected of stabbing another man near a Metro station Tuesday in East Hollywood, officials said.
Around 10:20 a.m., the suspect was involved in an altercation with a woman on the Red Line train platform at the Vermont/Beverly station when another man intervened, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement.
The suspect allegedly brandished a knife before running off and stabbing a man at street level.
Commuters have abandoned large swaths of a Los Angeles Metro train system plagued by crime and the scourge of drugs.
LAPD transit officers responded to the scene and found the suspect in the 300 block of North Vermont Avenue. According to police, officers fired at him after he brandished the knife.
Footage taken by a resident of the area and obtained by KTLA-TV Channel 5 showed the man appearing to run from police and hiding behind a car. At one point, the man drops an object but picks it up.
The suspect was taken to a hospital in stable condition.
A knife was found at the scene and will be booked as evidence, police said.
A man who was slashed in the face by a person with a machete last month at a Chatsworth bus station has filed a claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, against the city of Los Angeles.
The stabbing comes as Metro attempts to grapple with a rise in violence on its trains and at its stations.
Between January and February, Metro reported an 8.2% rise in violent crimes system-wide driven by a nearly 30% spike in robberies, from 28 to 36.
Aggravated assaults dropped by nearly 10%.
Between December and January, however, the system recorded a 14% spike in violent crimes driven mostly by a nearly 50% rise in aggravated assaults, from 29 to 43.
Police fire ‘less-lethal’ beanbags at a man armed with a knife at Union Station. The Metro rail system sees a dramatic increase in violent crimes.
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