MacArthur Station Stabbing: Two Slashed After Fight On BART Train

BART’s MacArthur station in Oakland, California, was closed for almost an hour Friday after an altercation aboard a Richmond-bound train resulted in stabbings of two passengers, BART officials said. No arrests have been made so far.

BART spokesman Christopher Filippi said the two male victims reported the incident to the police at the MacArthur BART station around 7.15 p.m. local time (10.15 p.m. EDT).

Officials said the two were being treated at Highland Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and while one suffered a laceration to the face, other suffered cuts to the arms. Details such as the description of the suspect were not immediately available.

Filippi said the station was closed and trains were not stopping there for close to an hour while police investigated the incident.

In unrelated incidents in July, 3 people died after violence on BART. Nia Wilson, 18, was fatally stabbed in an unprovoked attack at the MacArthur Station platform. "In my close to 30 years experience, [it was] probably one of the most vicious attacks I have seen," BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said at the time.

John Lee Cowell, the suspect, boarded a BART train in which Nia and her sister Lahtifa Wilson were traveling at Concord Station in California. When the three got off the train at the MacArthur Station, he reportedly approached them, slashed their throats with a knife and fled from the scene. While Nia succumbed to her injuries at the scene, her sister was rushed to a nearby hospital.

"It's more reminiscent of a prison yard assault where you have an individual with a sharp object or a shank and they do their attack so quickly that before anybody can really react, the person takes off running," Rojas said.

"I want justice for my daughter. I work at Highland Hospital and I see this every single day, I never imagined myself going through nothing like this. That's my baby girl up there,” Ansar Mohammed, the father of the victims said.

Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, said: “The senseless and violent stabbing of two young women on a BART train platform last night has shaken our community. Every parent who saw the father of Nia Wilson grieve for his daughter is heartbroken by this horrific act.”

The incident happened just a day after Don Stevens, 47, was punched by an unidentified man at Bay Fair Station, fell, struck his head and died. Alicia Trost, a BART spokeswoman said: “One week we can carry two million people and be extremely safe, but what happens in our community bleeds into our system and we have to deal with that too.”

In another fatal confrontation on July 18, Gerald Bisbee, 51, died from an infected cut after suffering a bloody lip and small cut on his knee during an attack at the Pleasant Hill BART station.