Person of interest in custody in stabbing death of CTA janitor at Damen Green Line station, police say
A person of interest is in custody after a CTA janitor was stabbed to death at the Damen Green Line station on Thursday.
Chicago police confirmed they had a person of interest in custody Friday morning, but did not release any further information.
Violence prevention leaders are holding a press conference on Friday after
Meanwhile, violence prevention leaders are holding a news conference outside the station at 11:15 a.m. and also plan to offer a $5,000 reward for any information that leads to an arrest.
Chicago police said just before 3 p.m., an unknown man approached the 41-year-old janitor inside the mezzanine area of the station, got into a verbal fight that then turned physical, and stabbed the victim in the neck.
Police sources said the incident began when a passenger on a CTA Green Line train maced a CTA operator on the train. During the altercation, a janitor who works for the CTA tried to intervene, and the person who attacked the train driver stabbed him.
The janitor was critically injured and was found unresponsive in a nearby room, police said. The attacker fled the station after the stabbing, headed west.
The janitor was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Pennie McCoach, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, the union representing CTA rail workers, identified the janitor as 41-year-old Julian Mobley, who had worked for the CTA since 2018.
McCoach called the stabbing a failure of CTA to provide a safe work environment for its staff and called for immediate changes in security measures.
In June, CTA rail switch worker Thomas Barlow was shot and killed during an attempted carjacking near the 95th Street stop on the Red Line.
"If nothing's done, the measurements of Local 308, we're going to look at other measurements that is going to cripple the city," she said.
Chicago police have issued an internal bulletin featuring surveillance images of Mobley's killer, but have not yet released those images publicly.
