Man arrested in BART stabbing attack
The 27-year-old homeless man suspected of stabbing two men on a train last week at the MacArthur BART Station in Oakland was arrested Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
Solomon Espinosa was on a Richmond-bound train at 7:50 p.m. Friday night when he allegedly attacked two men, whose names were not released. One of the victims was stabbed in the arm and the other suffered a wound to his face, said Anna Duckworth, a BART spokeswoman.
Espinosa fled the scene and disposed of a box cutter believed to be the weapon used in the attack, authorities said. He was arrested just before 1 p.m. Tuesday by officials with the U.S. Marshals task force in Oakland near Fifth Avenue and East Eighth Street, according to BART.
Officials did not provide additional details regarding his arrest and potential charges.
BART said surveillance video captured the altercation on the train and showed the two victims and Solomon spill onto the MacArthur platform as passengers fled, Duckworth said. It is unclear whether the train was at the station or moving at the time of the attack.
The station was shut down for more than an hour Friday night while detectives wrapped caution tape around one of the ticket monitor areas at the ground level and swabbed for DNA evidence.
Just steps away from the ticket area, two prominent memorials still remained for Nia Wilson, the 18-year-old woman who was fatally stabbed in an unprovoked attack at the same BART station just two weeks prior.
BART officials made themselves available to media Saturday afternoon at the Rockridge Station to answer questions about yet another violent attack at one of the transit agency’s train stations. Last month, three people died as a result of attacks on BART properties.
BART Police Deputy Chief Lance Haight said there were no officers on the platform when last week’s stabbing occurred.
The two victims, who were released from Highland Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, ran down the platform and alerted police at the ground level after the attack.
At the time of the incident, Duckworth said, six BART police officers and three Oakland police officers were on duty at the station.
The arrest comes a day after BART officials announced new safety measures including increased police patrols on trains and inside stations, boosting security training for employees and installing emergency call boxes on train platforms.