Man stabbed near SEPTA’s 15th Street Station; suspect in custody

A 28-year-old man was stabbed in the back near SEPTA’s 15th Street Station early Thursday morning, police said, and a suspect was taken into custody in the afternoon.

Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said police are still investigating the incident and no charges have been filed.

The victim was in stable condition at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, authorities said.

Around 5 a.m. Thursday, near 15th and Market, police said, two men got into an argument and one of them stabbed the other. The victim fled into 15th Street Station, according to SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.

Police reviewed surveillance footage and around 3 p.m. a SEPTA police officer spotted the suspect at the 15th Street Station, leaving a train on the Market-Frankford Line, said Busch. Philadelphia police arrested the man at 15th and Walnut shortly after, he said.

The stabbing was the latest in a spate of violent crime along SEPTA’s public transit system in recent months.

Last week, 16-year-old Tyshaun Welles was shot in the head on the Market-Frankford Line platform at 15th Street Station after a teenager opened fire into a crowd. Welles later died, and the teen suspect is expected to be charged with murder, authorities said.

The incident marked at least the fourth shooting of a juvenile on SEPTA in 10 months.

In late November, SEPTA transit police shot a 48-year-old man who they say attacked three people with a knife — including a woman working as an unarmed security guard — at the Walnut-Locust SEPTA subway station. The man — later identified as Gregory Skane — died last month, a SEPTA spokesperson said.

And earlier that month, a 16-year-old girl shot at a group of juveniles inside the SEPTA station at 15th and Market Streets, but no one was injured, police said.

Six people were killed on SEPTA last year, according to transit agency data. There were 108 aggravated assaults reported in 2023, down from 111 the previous year.

Safety on the transit system has been a growing concern in recent months, including in contract negotiations with SEPTA’s union workers.

Brian Pollitt, president of Transport Workers Union Local 234 — the largest of SEPTA’s unions — said Thursday that safety was a priority for SEPTA employees. In November, the union voted to ratify a one-year contract, but Pollitt has said the agreement is a “work in progress,” particularly in terms of safety and security issues.

“We need to recapture this system and make it safe for both SEPTA workers and riders,” Pollitt said in a statement Thursday. “How many more of these malicious acts do we have to witness before city government and the state join SEPTA in creating a strong deterrent?”

Troy Parham, vice president of Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109, which represents about 170 patrol officers, said transit police were doing their jobs, but it was “impossible to be everywhere at once.” Parham said the district attorney’s office should be more vigorous in prosecuting crime on SEPTA.

“These people’s actions have to come with a consequence,” he said.

A spokesperson for District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office said Thursday that prosecution of crime on SEPTA is on par with earlier years in previous administrations.

Amid concern about crime on the transit system, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office was poised to appoint a special prosecutor to handle cases involving crimes around SEPTA property in Philadelphia but missed the Jan. 13 deadline to do so. A spokesperson for the office said Thursday “the position remains posted” but did not elaborate. Krasner has sued to block the law, saying it improperly usurps his authority and defies the will of city voters who elected him.