Authorities were searching for a man who fatally stabbed a passenger in the neck on a Red Line Metro train in Hollywood on Monday morning.
The stabbing took place about 9:20 a.m., and the Red Line train stopped at the station at Vermont Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard, according to Lt. Albert Maldonado of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Transit Services Bureau.
The stabbing victim was transported to County USC Medical Center where he later died, according to a news release from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The man was stabbed in the throat and the perpetrator, described only as an adult male, was “outstanding,” Metro spokesman Jose Ubaldo said.
On its blog, Metro stated that the incident occurred after an altercation between two men.
“There was a verbal exchange,” Sheriff’s Transit Det. Keith Schumaker told the Los Angeles Times. “Then the suspect produces a weapon and lunged toward the victim with a stabbing motion.”
“It was something more than a conversation. It wasn’t anything that amounts to provocation. This was nothing like self-defense. There was a sudden attack after a few words,” Schumaker told the newspaper.
Metro asked any witnesses or anyone with information about the stabbing to come forward.