The practice pulled into the North Hollywood station Monday at 4:45 a.m., and I boarded with a handful of different riders headed south.
This was the identical line a safety guard had taken on April 22 after getting off work at a Tommy’s burger joint.
It was the final journey of her life, earlier than she turned the sufferer of an unprovoked stabbing on this practice.
Her slaying, so mindless, random and unsettling, wrecked her household and shook town. I can’t clarify precisely why I felt the necessity to retrace her steps. Possibly it was merely an try to know her a bit of higher.
The doorways whooshed closed. The practice left the station. Subsequent cease: Common/Studio Metropolis.
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Mirna Soza Arauz was her identify. Age — 67. Mom of three with seven grandchildren. Though most of us couldn’t have recognized her, as the main points of her life emerged, she turned recognizable.
Soza Arauz was an immigrant with a purpose, and she or he chased it in Los Angeles. She was one of many tens of 1000’s of front-line staff who take up their posts every day at low-paying jobs in a high-rent area, attempting to climb a ladder that retains getting taller.
The guts of town couldn’t beat with out them.
She was saving up for a deliberate transfer again to Nicaragua within the subsequent yr or so, a member of the family advised me, which is why — in a spot constructed for automobiles — Soza Arauz rode buses and trains, even when it turned dangerous to take action.
Not too long ago, two stabbings on buses made headlines in a 24-hour interval, one involving a driver and the opposite a 70-year-old passenger.
Mirna Soza Arauz was saving up for a deliberate transfer again to Nicaragua within the subsequent yr or so.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
“I can’t experience our transit system on my own. I’m afraid,” L.A. County Supervisor and Metro board member Kathryn Barger mentioned final week as Metro declared a security emergency after Soza Arauz’s killing and referred to as for stepping up safety measures, together with the usage of facial recognition know-how.
However so many individuals don’t have any different transportation choices, and the area doesn’t operate with out them.
So what are they to do with their concern?
When individuals can’t commute to and from work, college and the enterprise of the day with out concern, once we grow to be suspicious of these round us and probably the most weak amongst us are positioned within the best peril, these failures are our failures.
We will tighten transit safety, however we’d do higher to create a society during which buses and trains don’t grow to be last-resort cellular shelters for the homeless, mentally in poor health and addicted.
Arauz Soza “was stabbed with out provocation by a person who grabbed the bag she was holding,” in response to L.A. Dist. Atty. George Gascón. Her accused killer has a felony report that features a 2019 assault on one other Metro practice passenger. He pleaded no contest and underneath phrases of probation was ordered to avoid Metro trains, however how would anybody have enforced such an order?
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On Monday, earlier than I boarded the practice on the North Hollywood station, I drove to the Tommy’s in North Hills, pondering all of the whereas in regards to the final hours of Soza Arauz’s life, in regards to the inconvenience of her nightly trek all the best way right down to South Los Angeles, the place she and a son lived collectively.
Her Tommy’s Authentic is throughout from the Budweiser plant on Roscoe Boulevard. I arrived simply earlier than 4 a.m., and already, a brand new safety guard — Soza Arauz’s alternative — was on the job. He was watching over the car parking zone, which sits subsequent to a littered lot that fronts a vacant, graffiti-tagged constructing.
Mirna Soza Arauz was the mom of three and grandmother of seven.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
Armando Rubio, 56, advised me he didn’t know Soza Arauz, however he knew her destiny. He mentioned he was attacked a number of years in the past working as a safety guard at a South Los Angeles motel.
“I used to be in a coma,” Rubio mentioned, jutting his chin and pointing to his decrease enamel. “They’re implants.”
Tommy’s doesn’t open its doorways till 6 a.m., however the drive-through is open all night time. I ordered a espresso and the worker on the window advised me Soza Arauz normally caught the 152 bus on the cease throughout the road, at Roscoe and Haskell Avenue. The supervisor, Jose Murillo, mentioned he didn’t know a lot about Soza Arauz. She confirmed up, did her job, went dwelling and got here again many times.
“It’s so unhappy,” he mentioned.
I adopted in my automotive because the 152 lower via the darkness heading east for a number of miles alongside Roscoe, gathering its cargo of early risers on their approach to their posts, doing the work that retains town going. Males, ladies, younger, previous, virtually all individuals of colour. The bus wheeled south at Lankershim and pulled into the North Hollywood Metro station.
I parked, crossed a darkish avenue, and minded my very own enterprise whereas taking in all the things round me. One younger man stood and stared, for no apparent purpose, within the car parking zone close to the station. I hated feeling considerably on edge, enthusiastic about what may go improper as an alternative of all that was going proper within the morning rush. We lose a bit of our humanity when suspicion creeps into our being.
I questioned about Soza Arauz — practically my very own age — with no selection however to be weak, in the dead of night, alone.
I rode an escalator to the platform, the place passengers had been already awaiting the following practice. When it arrived, I boarded and one man pushed a motorcycle onto the identical automotive. I sat close to a middle-aged man and tried to strike up a dialog, however he saved to himself.
Among the many a number of individuals on our automotive, two or three seemed like they is likely to be homeless. One bought up and moved to a different automotive. One other, a younger lady, appeared anxious. She turned sharply in her seat, shouted one thing and banged her hand laborious on the again of the seat of a person throughout the aisle from me.
He didn’t search for from his telephone. A lady close to us averted eye contact.
It’s a fast five-minute experience to the Common/Studio Metropolis station. Someplace on that stretch, police say, Soza Arauz was attacked.
She was a safety guard, however unarmed, drained, and defenseless.
What may she have been carrying that was value stealing?
“She was … that hardworking on a regular basis citizen that works and busts their behind to place meals on the desk, who’s the spine of a household — who has household again of their place of birth ready for them to return,” mentioned Juan Castillo, the son-in-law of Mirna Soza Arauz.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
The practice stopped. I stepped onto the platform and observed some flowers had been positioned on a bench.
This was it, the place the place Soza Arauz had stumbled out of the automotive as her assailant fled.
Somebody had taped {a photograph} of her to the bench. Two extra pictures had been taped to a close-by column and somebody had written “descanse en paz” (relaxation in peace) subsequent to a coronary heart. Soza Arauz had reddish brown hair. She wore earrings, a bracelet, a faint smile and a glance of contentment.
Andres Rios was ready to board a practice to his downtown job as a lodge upkeep man. He knew in regards to the killing and advised me he’s a bit nervous as an everyday rider. There’s not sufficient safety in place, he mentioned.
Two personal safety guards in yellow vests had been strolling the platform and I requested one in all them if he was on responsibility the day Soza Arauz was attacked. Alex Salvador, 24, mentioned he was one of many responders. He mentioned he held her hand and inspired her to attempt to dangle on as she bled on the ground.
“I used to be speaking to her,” he mentioned, and Soza Arauz was nonetheless acutely aware, however “she couldn’t discuss.”
Minutes later, she was rushed to Cedars-Sinai, the place she died.
In the previous few days, relations have been making funeral preparations, planning one service in Los Angeles and one other in Nicaragua. I spoke to and texted Juan Castillo, her son-in-law, who lives in Managua, Nicaragua. He mentioned Soza Arauz’s physique can be flown dwelling, and that an outpouring of donations to a GoFundMe web page had been enormously appreciated.
“She was … that hardworking on a regular basis citizen that works and busts their behind to place meals on the desk, who’s the spine of a household — who has household again of their place of birth ready for them to return,” Castillo mentioned.
He advised me Soza Arauz knew the security dangers on public transit however didn’t assume that she, as an older lady, can be focused.
“She used to assist out the homeless and she or he would have helped out this man. If he had been in want of meals or garments or something, she would gladly have helped him out,” Castillo mentioned.
The killer didn’t “destroy only one life. He destroyed the life of an entire household and prolonged household.”
He destroyed greater than that, and town must be mourning the loss.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
