A man who stabbed three people on a BART platform this weekend remains at large Monday, just the latest in an ongoing series of attacks at the transit agency.
According to ABC 7, it was 9:45 a.m. Sunday when the suspect, described as "a white man with short blond hair, between 30 and 40 years old wearing a green army jacket" approached a 20-year-old man on the platform of BART's Lafayette Station.
The suspect demanded the man's backpack. When the victim refused, the Chron reports, the suspect "pulled out a knife and cut him across the forehead."
A 19-year-old man who witnessed the attack attempted to intervene, and was stabbed in the hand, BART police say. A third man was also wounded as he, too, attempted to stop the knife-wielding man.
As noted by the Chron, the platform was very busy, packed with people heading into San Francisco for Fleet Week and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.
The suspect fled the scene, BART confirms. The first two victims were transported to John Muir Medical Center for injuries that BART officials say are not considered life-threatening. The third injured man left before law enforcement officials arrived.
The Chron reports that "Law enforcement officials from various jurisdictions, including Lafayette police, joined in the search for the attacker." According to KRON 4, police searched on foot, and also used helicopters and canine units to look for the suspect.
In addition, the Chron says that BART police "closed the station for four hours while they searched for evidence, pulled security video of the attack and brought in cleaning crews to mop up the bloody aftermath of the violence."
BART spokesperson Taylor Huckaby said via statement that "there is no indication of any further threat to passengers because of the incident," CBS 5 reports. Hopeful statements of this type seem to have become a BART spokesperson stock in trade: See BART spokesperson Alicia Trost's remarks a few weeks ago describing a random attack as "out of the ordinary," seemingly forgetting a similar string of random beatings the month before.
But perhaps the fault lies with the area in which the BART station is located, for as Huckaby tells the Chron, “Our stations are snapshots of the communities we serve," even then admitting that “And Lafayette is not a high-crime area.”
Huckaby tells the Chron that it's possible that one of their security cameras captured footage of the man. If so, the photo will be released, as it has been for so many other recent BART crimes.
“Hopefully we will have a good picture,” Huckaby tells the Chron “We want to catch this guy.”
