Crowds and police vehicles gathered in response to reports of an active shooter on the Ohio State campus Monday morning. What we know about the Paris attacker A police officer cordons off the area after a knife attack in central Paris, Saturday May 12, 2018. The Paris police said the attacker was subdued by officers during the stabbing attack in the 2nd arrondissement or district of the French capital Saturday. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus) Policemen stand guard in Paris centre after one person was killed and several injured in a knife attack in Paris on May 12, 2018. - The assailant was killed by police. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP) (Photo credit should read THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images) People stand in front of the Louvre museum on February 3, 2017 in Paris after a soldier has shot and gravely injured a man who tried to attack him. "Serious public security incident under way in Paris in the Louvre area," the interior ministry tweeted on February 3 as streets in the area were cordoned off to traffic and pedestrians. / AFP / ALAIN JOCARD (Photo credit should read ALAIN JOCARD/AFP/Getty Images) Corey Johnson, 17, was arrested after admitting to stabbing three victims because of his faith, according to a probable cause affidavit from Palm Beach Gardens Police. SOCHI, RUSSIA - FEBRUARY 15: Bronze medalist Denis Ten of Kazakhstan celebrates during the medal ceremony for the Men's Figure Skating on day 8 of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics at Medals Plaza on February 15, 2014 in Sochi, Russia. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images) (CNN) — An 18-year old woman was stabbed to death at a public transit station Sunday evening in Oakland, California, marking the third death in less than a week from unrelated attacks on the Bay Area transit system known as BART. On Sunday night, Nia Wilson was walking on the subway platform with her sisters when a man stabbed her in an unprovoked attack, according to the Bay Area Rapid Transit officials. Nia’s sister Lahtifa, was also stabbed and seriously injured. “In my close to 30 years of police experience, it was probably one of the most vicious attacks that I’ve seen,” BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said, citing surveillance video in a Monday press conference. Police identified the suspect as John Cowell, 27, who was taken into custody Monday, according to BART police. Murder suspect now in custody! BART Police took him into custody at Pleasant Hill BART. Full details to come and Chief availability at Rockridge BART at 8pm. Thank you BPD and thank riders for keeping your eye out!! https://t.co/OxZmOw2OkI — SFBART (@SFBART) July 24, 2018 Rojas described Cowell as a violent felon, saying he was currently on parole after getting out of the California prison system four months ago. Surveillance video showed not just the stabbing on the platform, but the attacker removing his clothing in the parking structure as he fled, police said. BART police officers were patrolling the MacArthur station on Sunday night when the two sisters were stabbed around 9:36 p.m. They rendered aid to the two victims, according to a BART news release. As the search intensified for Cowell in the hours after the attack, BART police received a call Monday evening that a passenger had spotted the suspect on one of the trains, Rojas said. Officers were able to take Cowell into custody. He was not armed when he was detained, Rojas said. “We’re very glad that less than 24 hours, we were able to get this suspect into custody,” Rojas said. It was unclear whether Cowell has a lawyer. Rojas said he had not yet been charged. On Monday evening, marchers held a vigil for Wilson that brought nearly 1,000 people to downtown Oakland, according to an estimate by the Oakland police. “The senseless and violent stabbing of two young women on a BART train platform last night has shaken our community,” said Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf in a statement. “Although investigators currently have no evidence to conclude that this tragedy was racially motivated or that the suspect was affiliated with any hate groups, the fact that his victims were both young African American women stirs deep pain and palpable fear in all of us who acknowledge the reality that our country still suffers from a tragic and deeply racist history,” she said. Cowell is white, but police say no motive has been established. Cowell hasn’t been connected to any radical right wing or white supremacist group, but police are investigating all angles because he “has a violent past,” Rojas said. Cowell was paroled in May after being sentenced to two years in prison for second-degree robbery, according to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton. Discussing the motive that it is so far unknown, Wilson’s godfather Daryle Allums said, “We are asking the African-American community to stand down right now.” Attacks on the public transit system Wilson’s stabbing was the third death after other attacks in recent days on the BART system, which serves as the backbone of public transportation in the Bay Area. Rojas discussed the two other incidents. In each case, the victim died after an assault at a BART station. On early Saturday morning, a 47-year-old man was found injured on the platform at the Bay Fair Station, which is located in San Leandro, south of Oakland. He was declared brain dead at the hospital. The victim, identified as Don Stevens, a transient, was punched at the side of his head by an unidentified suspect, according to BART surveillance videos. After being struck, Stevens fell to the cement ground on the platform. Authorities are searching for a suspect. On Wednesday, a 51-year-old man was assaulted at the Pleasant Hill Station in Walnut Creek. The victim, identified as Gerald Bisbee suffered a minor bloody lip and small cut to the back of his knee, and went to the hospital the next day because he said he wasn’t feeling well. The man went to the hospital on Thursday, and was later released. On Friday, he was found dead in his bed. An autopsy found the cause of death came from an infection stemming from a small cut on Bisbee’s knee, according to BART. The suspect in this case is in custody, according to BART. CNN’s Braden Walker, Emily Smith and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.<doc-sep>An 18-year-old girl was stabbed and killed while exiting a train at the MacArthur BART Station on Sunday night Woman Reveals Her Final Words to Her Sister After They Were Stabbed at a BART Station, Man Arrested Less than 24 hours after a family day out turned to tragedy, a California woman has spoken about her sister’s senseless death. With her neck still bandaged from where her alleged attacker stabbed her, Lahtifa Wilson revealed how she pleaded with her sister to hold on after she too was stabbed in the neck at an Oakland BART Station on Sunday night. Get push notifications with news, features and more. “I’m her protector and I feel like I didn’t protect her,” she told ABC 7 News. “She’s just yelling my name, ‘Tifah, Tifah, Tifah,’ and I said, ‘I got you, baby, I got you.’” Lahtifa reassured her sister, Nia, telling her they would survive this, “We’re gonna get through this, I got you, you’re my baby sister.” Despite Lahtifa’s pleas, her 18-year-old little sister died from her wounds on the MacArthur platform, according to a press release from the BART Police Department. Late Monday, their alleged attacker, John Lee Cowell, was arrested after BART police released images of him from surveillance footage and police bodycam footage, according to a second press release from the police department. Cowell, 27, was found via an anonymous tip from another BART rider. He was aboard another train bound for Antioch at the Pleasant Hill Station. John Cowell Credit: BART Police John Cowell Just hours before Cowell’s arrest, a heartbroken Lahtifa told ABC7 that Nia was the “sweetest person on the earth.” “She didn’t do nothing to nobody, I didn’t do nothing to nobody and for this to happen is just outright crazy,” she said. bart-stabbing-2 Before the stabbing, Lahtifa told the outlet she and her sister had never met Cowell and were “blindsided” by the attack. “All of a sudden we transfer just to get blindsided by a maniac, for what I don’t know,” she said. bart-stabbing-3 Lahtifa Wilson | Credit: ABC 7 Allegedly, as Cowell walked away, Lahtifa claimed she saw him standing on the stairs and looking at her and Nia. “I looked back and he was wiping off his knife and stood at the stairs and just looked,” she claimed. “From then on I was caring for my sister.” “That’s my heart, she was my heart, no matter our ups and downs we still come back to each other like it was nothing,” she continued. Cowell is on parole and was released from prison four months ago, BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas told reporters Monday night. Cowell was previously convicted of felony second-degree robbery, according to SFGate. He was also previously convicted of battery in June 2013. Rojas said despite claims that Cowell may have links to white supremacist groups, so far investigators “haven’t connected him with any type of radical group or white supremacist group.” Prior to Cowell’s arrest, Nia’s godfather Darryle Allums spoke to reporters and asked the public to come together and solve the crime. “We have supported a lot of families with violence, but this is special, this is family,” he said. “They didn’t ask to get cut or stabbed. Those are our baby girls, those are our children. We need the community, especially the African American community to stand down right now.” Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. “We don’t know if this was racism, we don’t know if it was random, we don’t know what it was. Let’s get the information to find out what really happened, let’s get the facts so we can deal with this situation,” he added.<doc-sep>The authorities in California said Monday night that they had captured a man who fatally stabbed a young woman and wounded her sister at an Oakland transit station over the weekend, the latest of three unrelated homicides at Bay Area transit stations in less than a week. The Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department identified the stabbing suspect as John Lee Cowell, 27, a parolee who was released from prison about four months ago. Around 6:30 p.m. local time, the police took him into custody at the Pleasant Hill BART station, about 15 miles northeast of where the stabbing took place, said Chief Carlos Rojas of the BART Police Department. He said riders had identified Mr. Cowell, whose picture had been widely distributed. The suspect was unarmed when he was arrested. Mr. Cowell was being held without bail on Tuesday morning in a jail in Alameda County, Calif., on charges of first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon and theft, according to court records. His first court appearance was scheduled for Wednesday morning.<doc-sep>
San Francisco-area straphangers are on edge Tuesday following the third homicide on Bay Area Rapid Transit in less than a week. “Maybe I should start driving to school, because I don’t think I feel safe as a BART commuter anymore. But then again, I’m a woman of color. Am I safe anywhere? My car? On campus? At an event? Walking my dogs?” @keani_yafreak tweeted. see also BART stabbing suspect has dark and violent past Disturbing new details have emerged about the man arrested for... The most recent attack, on Sunday night, left 18-year-old Nia Wilson dead, and her sister, Latifa, seriously injured when a madman attacked them with a knife at the MacArthur Bay Area Rapid Transit station, according to BART officials. “It was probably one of the most vicious attacks that I’ve seen,” BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said during a Monday press conference. John Cowell, 27, is now in custody for the slashing thanks to an anonymous tip, according to authorities. Cowell is white, while his victims are black; authorities have not ruled that race was a factor in the attack. The two other attacks are also being treated as homicides. On Saturday, a 47-year-old transient was declared brain-dead after being punched in the side of the head on the platform of the Bay Fair Station in San Leandro. The suspect is still at large, officials said. And on Friday, 51-year-old Gerald Bisbee of Pittsburg, Calif., died from an infection from cuts he sustained cuts when a 20-year-old stranger attacked him after the two argued Wednesday at the Pleasant Hill Station in Walnut Creek, authorities said. Police busted Abdul Bey in connection with the attack, KRON4 reported. “All this s–t happening at BART, I’m real life scared to ever take my son on it, you never know what’s [going to happen],” commuter @leti__dgaf tweeted.