Suspects, ages 16 and 17, charged with aggravated assault, robbery in SkyTrain stabbing

Two teenagers have been charged with aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and robbery in connection to a stabbing at a SkyTrain station in New Westminster in April.

The suspects, ages 16 and 17, cannot be named because of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Police did not share the suspect's genders. At the time of the attack, they said they were looking for three suspects in their late teens or early 20s, two of them male and the other female. 

The New Westminster Police Department announced the charges in the April 10 incident in a news release Tuesday afternoon, a little more than two months after the apparently random attack.

Officers from the NWPD and Metro Vancouver Transit Police responded to Columbia SkyTrain Station around 11 p.m. on the night of the incident for a report that a man had been stabbed and a woman assaulted by "a group of youths not known to them."

“This was a senseless and violent incident that left a man with significant injuries,” said Sgt. Andrew Leaver in the NWPD release.

“It’s concerning to see the ages of these suspects and we’re hopeful they realize the severity of their actions and make better decisions in the future. We’d like to thank Metro Vancouver Transit Police for their ongoing assistance with this investigation.”

One of the arrested suspects remains in custody and the other has been released pending a future court appearance, police said.

The Columbia station stabbing was one of several high-profile instances of violence on public transit in Metro Vancouver in April.

The following day, 17-year-old Ethan Bespflug was stabbed to death on a transit bus in Surrey. 

Other violent incidents occurred that week in West Vancouver and on the SkyTrain in Surrey.  

The violence led to increased police presence at transit hubs, as well as heated debates in the provincial legislature over public safety on transit.