This undated booking photo provided by the Mecklenburg County, N.C., Jail shows Oscar Solarzano, who was charged with stabbing a man on a light-rail train in Charlotte, N.C., on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (Mecklenburg County, N.C., Jail via AP)
FILE - A Charlotte Area Transit System light rail departs a station, Sept. 8, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Erik Verduzco, File)
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This undated booking photo provided by the Mecklenburg County, N.C., Jail shows Oscar Solarzano, who was charged with stabbing a man on a light-rail train in Charlotte, N.C., on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (Mecklenburg County, N.C., Jail via AP)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Police in North Carolina have charged a 33-year-old man with critically injuring another person in a stabbing on a Charlotte commuter train, just a few months after a Ukrainian refugee riding one of the city's trains was killed in an unrelated knife attack.
Oscar Solarzano, 33, was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon and other crimes stemming from the Friday afternoon attack in which he wielded a large knife, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said in a news release.
Police said the victim suffered a stab wound and was hospitalized in critical but stable condition.
Solarzano was being held in jail Saturday without bond. A magistrate judge said in a court filing that the suspect was in the U.S. illegally and had previously been deported. He faced a hearing Monday morning in Mecklenburg County District Court.
An arrest warrant filed in a North Carolina court says Solarzano appeared to be intoxicated and was slurring his words when he challenged the victim to a fight.
Online court and jail records did not list an attorney for Solarzano.
The attack comes less than four months after a 23-year-old woman from Ukraine was killed on a Charlotte commuter train in an apparently random assault captured on video. The victim, Iryna Zarutska, had been living in a bomb shelter in Ukraine before coming to to the U.S. to escape the , her relatives said.
A suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., has been charged first-degree murder for Zarutska's killing in a North Carolina state court, and was also indicted in on a charge of causing death on a mass transportation system.
The death of the Ukrainian woman sparked anger among allies of President Donald Trump and figures in his Make America Great Again movement. Many pointed to the case as because leaders of large cities and state governors are failing to protect their residents from crime and rampant illegal immigration.
In November, the Trump administration in Charlotte. City officials said the surge in enforcement caused "unnecessary fear and uncertainty.”
Trump commented Saturday about the latest stabbing on his Truth Social site. “Another stabbing by an Illegal Migrant in Charlotte, North Carolina. What’s going on in Charlotte? Democrats are destroying it, like everything else, piece by piece!!! President DJT”
