CHARLOTTE — New video from inside a Charlotte light rail train shows a man holding a knife as he argues with two other people onboard.
The man who recorded that video told Channel 9’s Eli Brand that was his first experience on the Blue Line.
He was in town visiting a friend. His biggest question was where security was throughout the situation.
“I will kill you and eat you on this train,” the man with the knife said.
That threat is something the man who recorded the video on Sunday around 10 p.m. says he heard multiple times. All coming from a man who could be seen holding a knife and pointing it at two people a witness says he was in an argument with.
When asked if he ever expected to see a knife at any point when he was on the light rail, the witness, who wanted to stay anonymous, said no.
“That was shocking,” he said.
He says it all started when someone threw something they had in a cup at someone.
Another video the witness sent Channel 9 seems to show when the whole thing started. In it, you can see the woman involved run up to try and break up the two men before the knife came out.
The witness said he was getting ready to jump in and try to stop people from getting hurt.
“It was getting to the point to where someone was going to die and I was going to be the one to interfere,” he said. “I felt like I was going to have to stop it, and I don’t know, I just felt like I was going to have to do something I didn’t want to have to do.”
Later in the video, you can see that man holding the knife get off the train.
CATS says no one called police or security after the incident happened. They added that there are no reported injuries.
Officials also confirmed there was CMPD and private security on trains that evening, just not on that particular train car.
“All I was thinking about was, I thought they had more security for the train,” the witness said. “I was looking for where the police was at, because the interaction was going on for about 10 minutes.”
CATS says they will be enhancing security in the transit system soon. City council will decide later this month whether to approve a fare enforcement unit. CATS is also looking into AI-safety technologies that could alert authorities of bad behaviors.
The man who saw what happened says one of those passengers had to handle the situation herself.
“She took matters into her own hands and jumped in front of the knife. For him,” the witness said.
In the new city budget, money was approved to allows CATS to continue to receive 1,400 hours of support from off-duty CMPD officers per week.
We have reached out to CMPD to see if they are investigating the incident. They said they are, and they are working on a report.