Police fire less lethal rounds at man armed with knife at Union Station

Police shot a man armed with a knife with “less-lethal” rounds at Los Angeles’ Union Station on Friday, the latest violent incident in the region’s expansive public transit system.

Police responded to the 800 block of North Alameda Street shortly before 12:30 p.m. for reports of a man armed with a weapon, according to Officer Rosario Cervantes with the Los Angeles Police Department.

Officers fired beanbag rounds from a launcher at the suspect who was then taken into custody, Cervantes said. There was no other information provided by the LAPD about the incident or the person’s condition.

The Alameda Street entrance to Union Station was closed due to the police activity, according to social media updates from Metrolink.

Paramedics responded to Union Station shortly after 12:30 p.m. for a medical call, but it’s unclear whether it was related to the LAPD incident, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Margaret Stewart said.

The Metro rail system has seen a dramatic increase in violent crimes, with a 24% jump in aggravated assaults, robberies, rapes and murders from 2021 to 2022, according to its latest yearly report. The Red Line had by far the highest number of crimes, at 687, nearly twice as many as the next line, Blue, the report said. But it’s unclear how many incidents took place at the downtown transportation hub.

Earlier this month, two people were stabbed at Metro Red Line stations in separate attacks by different suspects, according to police. One person was stabbed at the Hollywood/Western station, and the other person was stabbed at the Westlake/MacArthur Park station just a few hours later.

A teenage boy was stabbed and shot to death near the 7th Street/Metro Center station in downtown Los Angeles in January, and weeks later a man was stabbed to death near an escalator at the Westlake/MacArthur Park station, according to authorities.

Metro’s head of security has sought to expand the agency’s in-house force of nearly 200 transit officers, some of whom are armed, and transit officials committed $122 million over the last year to put 300 unarmed “ambassadors” throughout the system to report crimes and help passengers.