A Los Angeles Metro board member says she is “afraid” and would not ride on the city’s public transportation system alone.
The comments were made during a board meeting Thursday where the transit agency’s Board of Directors declared a public safety emergency.
“I will not ride our transit system by myself. I am afraid and I sit on Metro, but I will not ride it,” Board Member Kathryn Barger said.
The comments come as a series of violent attacks this month have left a trail of bloodied victims hospitalized and one woman dead on Monday in Studio City.
In that incident, 67-year-old Mirna Soza Arauz was stabbed in the throat by a man with a pair of kitchen knives. The suspect, 45-year-old transient Elliot Tramel Nowden, has been charged with murder and is facing life in prison if convicted.
Earlier this month, on April 13, a bus driver was stabbed by a passenger in Willowbrook on the same day another man was stabbed in the Silver Lake neighborhood in unrelated incidents.
These violent attacks prompted the emergency meeting by the Board of Directors Thursday, where officials agreed to retrofit its buses with shatterproof glass barriers around the transit drivers.
Several other safety measures were also approved, including an increase in the number of security cameras and implementing facial recognition technology.
The Board said it may also look into the possibility of banning problematic individuals from Metro altogether.