Another rail stabbing in Charlotte. Did our leaders learn from the last? | Editorial

Who’s to blame for the latest stabbing on a Charlotte light rail train? As you might imagine, it’s not difficult to find pointed fingers.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wasted little time assigning responsibility for Friday’s incident, and it wasn’t to 33-year-old undocumented immigrant Oscar Solarzano of Honduras, who was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder and other offenses.

“What is it going to take for @CLTMayor to remove violent criminals off the streets and protect her constituents?” Duffy wrote on the site X on Saturday, referring to Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles. “The time to act is NOW.”

President Donald Trump quickly joined in. A Saturday statement issued by the White House included this from the president: “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!!!” A U.S. Department of Homeland Security statement Saturday affirmed that Solarzano had prior arrests for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, destroying evidence, resisting arrest and using a false ID, and had been convicted of robbery and illegal re-entry.

Lyles, for her part, did a bit of redirecting. After reminding Charlotteans that the city recently has “invested heavily in increasing security on our transit system and CMPD has been proactive in increasing its presence across our city,” she noted that there are “several aspects of public safety that are outside of the city’s jurisdiction, including immigration policy and enforcement.”

Had Lyles wanted to lean in on that, she also could have noted that Trump’s reckless “Operation Charlotte’s Web” might have snagged more criminals like Solarzano had Border Patrol and ICE agents not spent their time haphazardly grabbing non-criminals off our city’s streets.

Ultimately, the finger pointing avoids a larger truth about Friday’s stabbing. It was a crime committed on a transit system with persistent safety problems, in a city with continuing crime issues, in a country that faces complicated challenges involving illegal immigration. What we can best hope for moving forward is that there will be lessons learned.

Lyles and North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein at least seemed to have learned from their lackluster and late responses to the murder of Iryna Zarutska in August. Their prompt statements Saturday on the latest stabbing were important, not because Lyles and Stein needed to avoid the political hammering they took in the fall, but because their constituents need to see their leaders acknowledge tragedy and shortcomings quickly and forthrightly.

We’re more troubled by the response from the Charlotte Area Transit Authority. While CATS Interim CEO Brent Cagle noted that CATS has taken substantial measures on safety since August — including deploying additional CMPD officers and private security — spokesperson Brett Baldeck did not directly answer Observer questions Saturday about how many security staff were on board the Blue Line at the time of the stabbing, nor about systemwide staffing levels. A similar lack of transparency dogged CATS and the city after Zarutska’s murder in August. It is, quite simply, not how you restore public trust.

As for Trump and his administration, we’re under no illusion that Friday’s stabbing will be a reminder of illegal immigration’s complexities — or that Solarzano will be a reminder of whom his administration should actually be targeting. Trump wants to deliver blame, and he will do so at every opportunity in blue cities like Charlotte. But Charlotteans don’t want or need blame in the wake of this latest transit incident. We want accountability, from all.

This story was originally published December 8, 2025 at 5:00 AM.