A security guard was stabbed, and an alleged trespasser shot dead at a Metro station in Hollywood on Tuesday morning: the latest violent incident in a wave of safety problems for public transit in Los Angeles.
The Metro security guard was stabbed at about 9:10 a.m. on the platform of the Metro station at 1500 N. Vermont Ave., according to Los Angeles Police Department Officer Drake Madison.
The agency said the guard found a trespasser during “a routine security sweep” of a non-public area of the Vermont/Sunset Station.
“This resulted in an altercation where Contract Security Guards first utilized pepper spray and then after the trespasser stabbed one of the Contract Security Guards in the leg, a Contract Security Guard fired a weapon in self-defense,” Metro said in a statement.
The trespasser succumbed to his wounds, while the guard was hospitalized and is in stable condition.
Madison said the alleged trespasser was found about a block away at De Longpre and Vermont avenues, where the man, believed to be in his 40s, was found unconscious and not breathing.
Aerial footage from Sky5 showed police had opened an emergency entrance to the subway tunnels below in order to access the body.
Tuesday’s chaos comes on the heels of several high-profile attacks, including a woman who was fatally stabbed at a Universal City Metro station and a bus driver who was accosted by an apparently homeless woman.
Sofia Pop Perez contributed to this report.