A single misdemeanor charge is all that has been filed in connection with this week’s stabbing on the Belmont Red Line platform, according to Chicago police. It’s the second time in a week that a stabbing on the train system resulted in a misdemeanor charge even though signs throughout the transit system warn that anyone who batters a transit passenger or employee will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Police said that Monday’s incident began around 12:21 a.m. as two men argued on a southbound Red Line train on the North Side. One of those men and a 27-year-old man who was riding the train but was not involved in the dispute exited onto the Belmont platform.
When the 27-year-old raised his hands as he passed the other man, the other man pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the hand, police said. The offender ran from the train station, but police stopped a man nearby and took him into custody after multiple witnesses identified him as the assailant, police said Monday. Officers allegedly found a knife on the southbound platform.
The victim was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center for treatment.
Chicago police said Thursday that only one count of misdemeanor battery had been filed in the case. Maurice Holmes, 49, was released on his own recognizance and is due in court on September 22.
Earlier case
Last week, a woman was charged only with misdemeanor battery after she allegedly stabbed a CTA employee in his neck on a Loop train platform. Police said the 49-year-old transit worker accidentally sprayed water on a woman as he washed the State-Lake train platform around 10:44 p.m. Wednesday, July 28. The woman became upset and stabbed him in the neck with a knife, police said.
Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital stitched the stab wound closed, according to police and prosecutors.
On Saturday, prosecutors charged the woman, 37-year-old Quinton Joiner, with misdemeanor battery.
During Joiner’s bond hearing, prosecutors said the CTA worker pushed Joiner back when she confronted him about spraying water toward her. According to prosecutors, Joiner then pulled out a knife and stabbed the worker in the right side of the neck.
CPD records show Joiner was originally arrested for felony aggravated battery of a transit worker, but that charged was reduced to a misdemeanor.
Joiner’s public defender argued that Joiner was not the “initial aggressor” because the transit worker allegedly sprayed her with water and pushed her.
Judge David Navarro set bail at $5,000. Joiner will need to post $500 to get out of jail on the charge. Navarro also ordered her held in lieu of $7,500 on warrants from Kankakee County and a local violation of probation warrant. She’ll need $750 to get out on those cases.
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