Man stabbed at Market-Frankord El’s Tioga station

A 37-year-old man was stabbed twice Sunday while waiting for a train on the eastbound platform of the Tioga station of the Market-Frankford El, Philadelphia police said.

Investigators released few details about the incident, which occurred just after 6 p.m., saying only that the victim had been stabbed twice in the back and sustained cuts to his head. They did not identify a suspect or recover a weapon.

Emergency responders took the man to Temple University Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition, according to police.

The stabbing is the latest in a string of violent incidents that have plagued SEPTA’s transit system in recent weeks. On April 23, a man was shot and critically injured around 3 a.m. in the PATCO-Broad Street Line concourse. Two days earlier, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the face outside the 52nd Street El station.

And a man was fatally shot April 8 during a fight inside the Broad Street Line’s Walnut-Locust station. That incident followed another shooting of a man and a woman as they waited at the line’s Snyder station.

SEPTA officials said Monday that security footage that captured the incident a day earlier appeared to show a group of four teenagers involved in an altercation with the 37-year-old victim shortly before they attacked him.

After a brief exchange of words, the teens attacked the older man and one of them stabbed him in the back, SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said. He added that the transit agency was working with the School District of Philadelphia to identify the suspects.

“There’s been a very troubling pattern we’ve seen with some recent incidents — within seconds, an argument turns violent, and then escalates again with the use of a gun or another weapon,” he said. “With over 30,000 surveillance cameras covering most stations and vehicles, we are usually able to quickly identify and arrest suspects, and we’re working toward that now with this case.”