Man charged in hatchet attack on SEPTA was out on bail for attempted murder

A 28-year-old man who was out on bail for attempted murder has been charged with slashing a man with a hatchet at a SEPTA station over the weekend before attempting to rob him, police said Monday.

Just after 1:15 a.m. Sunday, police said Kenneth Rogers approached a 46-year-old man as he walked through the concourse at SEPTA’s Eighth and Market Streets subway station, then hit him in the back of the head with a small tool that police described as a hatchet.

After striking the man, Rogers demanded his valuables, police said, and when the victim told Rogers he had only a dollar, Rogers continued to beat and slash him. A bystander intervened and wrested the weapon from Rogers’ hands, police said, but Rogers continued to attack the man, stomping on his face and threatening to kill him.

Rogers fled, but transit police quickly apprehended him not far from the scene, said SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.

The victim suffered multiple lacerations to his head and body. He was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and was expected to survive, Busch said.

Busch said investigators believe both Rogers and his alleged victim were experiencing homelessness.

On Monday, Rogers was charged with aggravated assault, robbery, making terroristic threats, and related crimes. He is being held on $750,000 bail.

This is only the latest time Rogers has been accused of violence. In just the last three years, he has twice been charged with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing two people in separate incidents. And over the last decade, he’s been in and out of jail on robbery, theft, and drug possession charges, records show.

In June 2020, Rogers was arrested after police said he stabbed his cousin in the torso. According to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest, Rogers owed his cousin about $7,000, and the two got into a fight over it near Tioga and Jasper Streets. Rogers then stabbed his cousin in the chest, puncturing his lung, and vowed to kill him before a bystander intervened, the victim told police, according to the records.

Rogers was arrested and charged with attempted murder, but after the victim failed to appear at multiple court hearings, a judge dismissed the charges, records show. The district attorney’s office refiled the charges, records show, but a judge again tossed the case after the victim failed to appear four more times at scheduled preliminary hearings.

Then, in June 2023, Rogers was again charged with attempted murder after police said he stabbed a man multiple times at the Allegheny station on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line in Kensington, according to the arrest affidavit.

He was originally held on $750,000 bail. But the victim in that case, who was also unhoused, did not maintain contact with victim’s services and similarly failed to appear at court hearings, said Jane Roh, a spokesperson for the DA’s office.

Following those failures to appear, Common Pleas Court Judge Nicholas Kamau in December reduced Rogers’ bail to unsecured — meaning Rogers could be released without posting bail so long as he did not violate the conditions of his release. Rogers was ordered to house arrest with an electronic monitor following an agreement that he could stay at his mother’s home, Roh said.

The DA’s office did not file a motion appealing or objecting to the bail change, according to court records.

A waiver trial was scheduled for January, but Rogers did not show up, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Roh did not answer questions about the bail change, instead pointing to the city’s lack of social services.

“As with many issues in Philly, housing and services are a solution that we are too often lacking,” she said.

SEPTA said Rogers’ ability to return to the transit stations and commit more crimes was frustrating.

“For us, this is particularly frustrating because there was a very violent incident he was arrested for just last year, and yet he was back out on the system,” said Busch, of SEPTA.

Busch said the frustration wasn’t with anyone in particular, and that the agency has a good relationship with the DA’s office. Still, he said it was befuddling how, even with strong evidence in the previous case, Rogers could be released back into the community.

Violent crime on SEPTA remains relatively rare, Busch said — the agency had gone more than 30 days without a violent incident before this weekend, he said, and aggravated assaults have declined so far this year. Still, those crimes, including the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old on the City Hall platform last month, are highly visible and fuel a perception that SEPTA isn’t safe.

In the meantime, SEPTA continues to hire transit police, Busch said, and for the first time in recent memory, the agency is on track to have a fully staffed police force. He said those officers, combined with the 30,000 cameras across the authority, should assure SEPTA’s 600,000 daily riders that the authority is committed to their safety.

Also over the weekend, a 20-year-old man was also injured in a shooting after shots were fired on a Broad Street Line train car that had just left the Hunting Park station Saturday night, police said.

Just before 9 p.m., a rider on the train car was jumped by three men, said Capt. Jim Kearney, head of the police department’s nonfatal shooting unit. The man being attacked then pulled out a gun, which Kearney said he was licensed to carry, and fired it twice. In the chaos, the bullets missed the attackers, Kearney said, and instead struck a 20-year-old bystander. He was shot in the left flank and shoulder.

The attackers stole the gun from the man’s hands, Kearney said, and fled with it. The rider who fired the gun stayed at the scene, and was questioned by police. He was released from custody and is not facing charges at this time, Kearney said. That could change as the investigation continues, he said.

Detectives are still working to identify the three attackers, he said.