One injured after second stabbing on North Carolina commuter train in months

Police in North Carolina have charged a 33-year-old man with critically injuring another person in a stabbing on a Charlotte commuter train, just a few months after a Ukrainian refugee riding one of the city’s trains was killed in an unrelated knife attack.Oscar Solarzano, 33, was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes stemming from the Friday afternoon attack in which he wielded a large knife, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said in a news release.Oscar Solarzano, 33. Photograph: APPolice said the victim suffered a stab wound and was taken to the hospital in critical but stable condition.Solarzano was being held in jail on Saturday without bond. A magistrate judge said in a court filing that the suspect was in the US illegally and had previously been deported. He faces a hearing on Monday morning in Mecklenburg county district court.An arrest warrant filed in a North Carolina court says Solarzano appeared to be intoxicated and was slurring his words when he challenged the victim to a fight.Online court and jail records did not list an attorney for Solarzano.The attack comes less than four months after a 23-year-old woman from Ukraine was killed on a Charlotte commuter train in an apparently random assault captured on video. The victim, Iryna Zarutska, had been living in a bomb shelter in Ukraine before coming to to the US to escape the war, her relatives said.A suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr, has been charged with first-degree murder for Zarutska’s killing in a North Carolina state court, and was also indicted in federal court on a charge of causing death on a mass transportation system.The death of the Ukrainian woman sparked anger among allies of Donald Trump and figures in the president’s “Make America great again” (Maga) movement. Many pointed to the case as evidence that federal intervention was needed because leaders of large cities and state governors are failing to protect their residents from crime and rampant illegal immigration.In November, the Trump administration increased immigration enforcement in Charlotte. City officials said the surge in enforcement caused “unnecessary fear and uncertainty”.Trump commented on Saturday about the latest stabbing on his Truth Social site. “What’s going on in Charlotte?” Trump wrote in part. “Democrats are destroying it, like everything else, piece by piece!!! President DJT”