A Metro worker at the Friendship Heights station used a pocketknife to fatally wound a man who D.C. police said attacked her shortly after midnight Tuesday in an angry fit over late service, according to law enforcement authorities.
Police identified the man Tuesday night as Jeremy Bond, 28, of Rockville, Md. They said he died at a hospital.
The Metro employee, who is 29, was taken to a hospital as a precaution, but police said she was not injured. She did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The incident occurred about 12:15 a.m. at the station, which is on Wisconsin Avenue at a shopping plaza near the Maryland border and in one of the District’s more affluent neighborhoods.
Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said Tuesday night’s final train — scheduled to be in the station at 11:53 p.m. — was delayed after holding at NoMa for riders connecting from shuttle buses serving two stations during a partial Red Line construction closure. Authorities would not say how the man entered the station or whether he had been on that train.
Beginning this past weekend, Metro closed the Rhode Island Avenue and Brookland stations for 45 days. The closure is having ripple effects on the rest of the Red Line. The shutdown, for platform rebuilding and structural overhauls at both stations, has reduced service on the northeast portion of the line while resulting in fewer rush-hour trains overall from NoMa to Shady Grove. On weeknights, Metro says, trains on the rest of the Red Line are operating every 15 minutes during the shutdown. The closure is expected to last through Sept. 3. Last summer, Metro scaled back its operating hours.
The changes, paired with fare increases, less frequent trains and the elimination of and modifications to dozens of bus routes, fostered resentment among many of the system’s riders, who already had faced months of disruptions under the SafeTrack maintenance project.
Meanwhile, Metro workers have complained of an increasingly hostile work environment and of attacks by customers. Those assaults typically have been directed at bus drivers.
It is unclear precisely when Tuesday night’s final train passed through the station. It also is unclear how long the kiosk manager or other employees remain on duty after the final train has passed through the station and when the gates are closed to the public.
D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, speaking on Fox 5 television, said the Metro worker was sitting in the kiosk near the western end of the station when the man entered the booth. It was not immediately clear whether the booth was locked or the worker opened the door to speak with the man.
According to the police report, the woman was “struck” in the arm. The report does not say with what she was struck. The report also said the attacker was “angry due to delayed service.”
The woman feared for her life and acted “in self-defense,” the report says, and “stabbed the suspect in the chest with a pocketknife.” Newsham said detectives were “going to look at whether it was a self-defense case.”
Stessel, speaking early Tuesday, said the incident did not affect operations on that part of the rail system.
Martin Weil contributed to this report.