Police have accused an Uptown man of stabbing and seriously wounding another man with a pocket knife aboard the CTA at the Wilson Red Line stop last week.
Trent Prusinski, 23, faces two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm. He got into an argument with another man while on the train and stabbed him three times in the back, according to a police report contained in court records. The alleged victim was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition with three stab wounds and a fractured shoulder, according to the report.
Prusinski has an alleged preceding history of violence on board the CTA, court records show. Police arrested him in September 2023 for allegedly attacking a CTA bus driver, breaking the steering column on the bus and throwing it at the driver after the driver refused to let him on the bus. He was given a formal reprimand from a judge early last month after violating his pretrial release conditions and is set to appear in court for that case Sept. 20, records show.
Prusinski was also ordered to stay away from the Bezazian branch of the Chicago Public Library in Uptown in March 2024 after being charged with criminal damage to property and trespassing on state land, records show.
The Sept. 2 stabbing was one of several violent events aboard public transit last week, occurring hours after a man allegedly opened fire onto four people sleeping on the Blue Line. The next day, an on-duty CTA employee was shot in the chest at the Howard Red Line station.
Prusinski appeared Tuesday afternoon at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse for a detention hearing and was ordered held pending trial, a spokesperson for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office said. He is next set to appear in court Sept. 16 in Skokie.
