DALLAS -- A stabbing at a DART rail platform shut down all rail service through downtown Dallas for roughly three hours on Tuesday.
Trains stopped running while police collected evidence.
It happened at the Pearl/Arts District station around 5:30 a.m. A video camera on the platform shows a man and woman exiting separate doors on a train before the man walks up to the woman, striking her in the face with a sharp object, said DART spokesman Mark Ball.
It is unclear if they exchanged words.
The video was not immediately available to the public, though News 8 filed an open records request.
The unidentified woman was taken to Baylor University Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries, said Ball. She had intended to go to Baylor even before the stabbing.
The suspect ran off and is still on the loose. DART police said no detailed description of the suspect is available at this time.
Shuttle buses were running to transport passengers at affected rail stations.
About 30,000 passengers use DART rail to go through downtown each morning.
There are call boxes and cameras at every platform and passengers can text DART police to request an officer to meet them at the platform if they feel uncomfortable. The number is posted on every DART bus and rail.
DART no longer has uniformed officers on every train, a measure temporarily put in place after a series of violent incidents in 2012 -- including a shooting at the same station.
DART doesn't plan to step up security in this case.
"DART is one of the safest transit systems in America," said Ball. "You compare us to other transit systems throughout the country and our crime rate is very low. We're optimistic we'll be able to solve this rather quickly."
"It' kind of scary because we all wonder if it's safe to be here," said Rita Rodriguez, who works nearby.
"They should always step it up. You can't have to much security, not really. We see what happened today; definitely they could step it up," said Pam Tyer Isaacs, who rides DART daily.
The transit system has 100 police officers, and they sometimes ride the trains. There are also fare enforcement officers, who wear uniforms but don't have guns, on many trains.
When it comes to violent crimes, the most recent DART statistics show there were 60 robberies and 16 aggravated assaults between January and August of 2014. That's down from the same time frame in 2013.
No stats were immediately available on the number of calls for service to this particular station so far this year.
