Charlotte stabbing reignites debates on commuter safety, immigration

(The Center Square) – Charlotte welcomed its new police chief Friday morning, and by nightfall was returned to the spotlight of light rail train safety and the nation’s debate on immigration, two recent flashpoints this time coming together in one case.

Court filings confirmed the suspect in a stabbing on the Blue Line in the northeastern part of the city was illegally in America and had at least once been deported. Oscar Solarzano, 33, said the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, is charged with first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon and is jailed without bond.

The victim in the afternoon attack was hospitalized with critical injuries.

Just hours earlier in the morning, Estella Patterson was sworn in as the new police chief. She’s leading a unit for a city still embattled by more than 400 arrests during Charlotte’s Web, an enhanced enforcement of federal immigration law last month, and stung by the stabbing death of Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train 106 ...