Not four months after the fatal stabbing of young Ukrainian refugee on Charlotte’s light rail, an illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet and who was deported twice, has been arrested for allegedly stabbing a man on the same line.
Police arrested Oscar Solarzano, reportedly a homeless illegal alien, and charged him with first degree attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, breaking and entering, carrying a concealed weapon and being intoxicated and disruptive, the New York Post is reporting from court records.
Solarzano, 33, is being held without bond.
Solarzano, a Honduran national, on late Friday afternoon allegedly broke into the light rail on the system’s blue line while drunk and challenged his victim to a fight before stabbing him with a large knife. Authorities are saying it was not a “random act of violence” but part of an altercation between the two men that escalated.
The man is hospitalized in stable condition at Novant Health Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, ABC News reported.
The alleged perpetrator’s address on court records matches a location of a Charlotte homeless shelter, the Post reported.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has issued a detainer that seeks to prevent Solarzano from being released back into the community but that’s no guarantee he won’t be back on the street.
“This heinous stabbing by this twice removed illegal alien should have NEVER happened,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Saturday. “ICE lodged an arrest detainer to ensure Oscar Gerardo Solorzano-Garcia is not released back into North Carolina neighborhoods. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the county will honor the detainer since they have a history of not cooperating with ICE.”
The stabbing also garnered the attention of President Donald Trump, who wrote in an X post, “What’s going on in Charlotte? Democrats are destroying it, like everything else, piece by piece!!!”
Solorzano’s criminal history includes prior arrests for aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, destroying evidence, resisting arrest, using a false ID, and convictions for robbery and illegally re-entry, according to a DHS statement.
DHS also reported an immigration judge ordered Solorzano deported in 2018. He was removed again in 2021 after illegally crossing the border. He entered the country illegally for a third time at an unknown date and location.
The attack comes after the shocking killing on August 22 of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, who was attacked on without warning by a homeless career criminal on the same blue line in Charlotte.
Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, was identified as the suspect and charged with first-degree murder, that charge partly based on surveillance footage of him unfolding a pocket knife and plunging into the young woman in the seat in front of him as she was on her way home from work.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
