The train arrived at the North Hollywood station at 4:45 a.m. on Monday morning, and I boarded the train with a few other southbound riders.
This was the same line a security guard took after getting off work at Tommy’s Burgers joint on April 22.
This was the last journey of his life before he became the victim of an unprovoked stabbing in this train.
Her murder, so senseless, random and heartless, devastated her family and shook the city. I can’t explain exactly why I felt the need to step back from her. Maybe it was just an attempt to get to know him a little better.
The doors closed suddenly. The train left the station. Next stop: Universal/Studio City.
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Mirna Soza Arauz was her name. Age – 67. Mother of three children with seven grandchildren. Although most of us did not know her, as the details of her life emerged, she became recognizable.
Soza Arauz was an immigrant with a goal, and she pursued it in Los Angeles. she was one of thousands front line workers Those who hold their positions every day in low-paying jobs in a high-rent area try to climb a ladder that keeps getting higher.
The heart of the city does not beat without them.
She was saving up for a plan to move back to Nicaragua in the next year or so, a family member told me, which is why — in a place built for cars — Soza Arauz rode buses and trains, even then. When it became risky to do so.
recently, two stabbings in buses Headlines were made over a 24-hour period, one of which involved the driver and the other involving a 70-year-old passenger.
Mirna Soza Arauz was saving with plans to move back to Nicaragua in the next year or so.
(Denia Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)
“I will not ride By our transit system itself. I’m scared,” L.A. County Supervisor and Metro board member Katherine Barger said last week as Metro Security emergency declared after Soza Arauz’s Strike and called for increased security measures, including the use of facial recognition technology.
But so many people have no other transportation options, and the region doesn’t function without them.
So what do they have to do with their fears?
When people can no longer go to work, school, and day-to-day business without fear, when we begin to suspect those around us and the most vulnerable among us are put in the greatest danger, So those failures are our failures.
We can tighten transit security, but we would be better off creating a society in which buses and trains do not become last resort mobile shelters for the homeless, mentally ill and addicted.
Arauz Soza “was stabbed without provocation According to LA District, a man snatched the bag she was carrying. Atty. George Gascon. Her accused killer has a criminal record that includes an attack on another metro train passenger in 2019. He pleaded no contest and as part of the terms of his probation was ordered to stay off Metro trains, but how would anyone enforce such an order?
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On Monday, before boarding the train at the North Hollywood station, I walked to Tommy’s in the North Hills, thinking the whole time about the last hours of Soza Arauz’s life, about the inconvenience of her nightly trip to South Los Angeles. Kept thinking. Angeles, where he and his son lived together.
His Tommy’s Original is across from the Budweiser plant on Roscoe Boulevard. I arrived just before 4 a.m., and already, a new security guard – replacing Soza Arauz – was on duty. He was keeping an eye on the parking lot, which is located next to a garbage can in front of an empty, graffiti-tagged building.
Mirna Soza Arauz was a mother of three and grandmother of seven.
(Denia Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)
Armando Rubio, 56, told me he doesn’t know Soza Arauz, but he knows her fate. He said he was attacked several years ago while working as a security guard at a South Los Angeles motel.
“I was in a coma,” Rubio said, raising his chin and pointing to his bottom teeth. “They’re implants.”
Tommy’s doesn’t open its doors until 6 a.m., but the drive-thru is open all night. I ordered a coffee and the employee at the window told me that Soza Arauz usually catches the 152 bus to the stop at Roscoe and Haskell Avenue, across the street. The manager, Jose Murillo, said he did not know much about Soza Arauz. She came, did her work, went home and came back again and again.
“It is very sad,” he said.
As the 152 drove many miles eastward in the dark with Roscoe, I followed in my car, collecting the freight of early risers on the way to their posts, and doing the work that keeps the city running. . Men, women, young, old, people of almost all colors. The bus headed south into Lankershim and arrived at the North Hollywood Metro station.
I parked the car, crossed a dark street, and went about my business, taking in everything around me. In the parking lot near the station, a young man was standing and staring for no apparent reason. I hated feeling somewhat stumped during the morning rush, thinking about what could go wrong instead of everything that was going right. When doubt creeps in we lose a piece of our humanity.
I was thinking of Soza Arauz – who was about my age – who had no choice but to live unprotected, in the dark, alone.
I rode the escalator and reached the platform, where passengers were already waiting for the next train. When it reached, I got into it and a man mounted the bike on the same car. I sat next to a middle-aged man and tried to strike up a conversation, but he kept to himself.
Of the many people in our car, two or three looked like they might be homeless. One got up and went to another car. Another, a young woman, looked worried. She turned sharply in her seat, yelled something, and slammed her hand on the back of the seat of a man across the aisle from me.
He didn’t look up from his phone. A woman near us avoided eye contact.
It’s a quick five-minute walk from Universal/Studio City Station. Police say Soza Arauz was attacked at the same location.
She was a security guard, but was unarmed, tired and helpless.
What did he have that was worth stealing?
Juan Castillo said, “She … was a hard-working everyday citizen who worked and toiled to put food on the table, who was the backbone of a family – whose family was waiting for her return to her native land. Used to be.” Son-in-law of Mirna Soza Arauz.
(Denia Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)
The train stopped. I stepped onto the stage and saw that there were some flowers placed on a bench.
This was the spot where Soza Arauz staggered out of the car as her attacker fled.
Someone had taped a picture of him to the bench. Two more photos were taped to a nearby column and someone had written “climb down(Rest in Peace) Next to a heart. Soza Arauz had reddish brown hair. She wore earrings, a bracelet, a faint smile and a look of satisfaction.
Andres Rios was waiting to board the train to his downtown job as a hotel maintenance worker. He knew about the murder and told me that as a regular rider he was a little nervous. “There is not enough security there,” he said.
Two private security guards in yellow vests were roaming the stage and I asked one of them if he had been on duty the day Soza Arauz was attacked. Alex Salvador, 24, said he was one of the responders. He said he held her hand and encouraged her to try to hang on as she lay bleeding on the floor.
“I was talking to her,” he said, and Soza Arauz was still conscious, but “she couldn’t talk.”
A few minutes later, he was taken to Cedars-Sinai, where he died.
Over the past few days, family members have been making funeral arrangements, planning one service in Los Angeles and another in Nicaragua. I spoke and messaged his son-in-law, Juan Castillo, who lives in Managua, Nicaragua. He said that Soza Arauz’s body would be taken home, and a large number of donations would be made. GoFundMe page Was greatly appreciated.
Castillo said, “She was … a hard-working everyday citizen who works hard and works hard to put food on the table, who is the backbone of a family – whose family is waiting for her to return to her native land.” Is.”
She told me that Soza Arauz was aware of the security risks on public transportation but that she did not think that because she was an older woman, she would be targeted.
“She helped the homeless and she would have helped this guy too. If he needed food or clothes or anything, she would gladly help him,” Castillo said.
The killer “did not destroy just one life.” “He destroyed the lives of an entire family and extended family.”
He destroyed even more than that, and the city must mourn this loss.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
