When Oscar Solorzano stabbed another passenger aboard the Charlotte Area Transit System’s LYNX Blue Line train in December, he wasn’t supposed to be on the train at all. He’d been banned from using CATS transportation a few months earlier.
But violent riders flouting bans is a common occurrence on CATS, according to the transit system’s own records from the last two years.
More than a dozen banned riders in 2025 were banned again for another offense during periods when they were prohibited from using the system, records obtained by The Charlotte Observer show.
Many of these people had been charged with serious crimes like assaulting security officers or bus and train operators, weapons possession, or threatening drivers.
CATS representative Brett Baldeck declined to make interim CEO Brent Cagle or chief safety and security officer Eric Osnes available for interview or to directly answer questions from the Observer about the findings. Baldeck instead provided a copy of its exclusion policy, which was already public.
That policy says low-level misdemeanors such as loitering or disorderly conduct, rule violations and repeated fare evasion can earn riders a 6-month suspension. Riders cited for violent offenses such as assault or property damage, weapons possession and sexual crimes can be banned for one year.
In a Dec. 10 news release, Cagle said there are “several challenges” to enforcing bans.
“Tens of thousands of people ride CATS vehicles every day and monitoring everyone entering the system is not feasible at this time as there is no practical way to identify an excluded individual as they board,” the release read.
CATS is exploring facial recognition technology to help identify banned riders, according to the release. It did not provide any specifics on the proposed technology or provide an estimated timeline for implementation.
Missing data raises enforcement questions
Law enforcement personnel with jurisdiction on CATS, as well as authorized transit system staff and others can enforce the bans, according to the agency’s written policy. Banned riders receive written notice at the time a ban is issued, the policy states.
Solorzano, 33, was banned for a year on Oct. 8, 2025 for having a “large knife” on light rail property, the Observer has reported. The undocumented immigrant had been twice deported to his home country of Honduras in the years leading up to the stabbing.
Despite that, he received a six-month ban for public intoxication at an unnamed CATS location the very next day.
CATS security and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers who responded on the 9th “did not have visibility into the prior day’s exclusion” due to a data entry error, according to the Dec. 10 news release. Solorzano would have received an indefinite ban if they had, the release said.
Indefinite bans must be approved by CATS’ chief safety and security officer and are for riders with multiple and “progressive” violations of CATS rules, according to its exclusion policy. Qualifying repeat violations include certain misdemeanor or felony criminal offenses such as assault, weapons possession or sexual crimes, or violence against CATS employees.
“CATS records on these persons are reviewed as a whole and have shown they have been excluded from the system multiple times and have progressively escalated behaviors, as stated in the categories above, and continues to pose a threat to CATS employees, agents, contractors, riders” and the transit system, the policy states.
CATS records obtained by the Observer indicate that the data entry error that the transit system said prevented officers from seeing Solorzano’s previous offense on Oct. 9 may not have been an isolated event.
Although Solorzano was banned twice in 2025, according to the CATS release, his name does not appear in CATS’ internal list of riders banned that year provided to the Observer. It’s not clear how many other banned riders were also left off.
Safety on CATS transportation has been under intense scrutiny since Iryna Zarutska was stabbed to death on her way home from work on a Blue Line rail car last summer. Her killing drew outrage from the White House and state Republican legislative leaders.
Just this week, a Federal Transit Administration audit put CATS transit system violence in the spotlight.
It found that CATS’ “rate of crimes against passengers” is three times higher than the national average. And the rate of assault on CATS transit workers jumped to five times the national average in 2025, despite being below the national average the previous two years.
CATS responded with a written statement saying it is “committed to advancing” its security and safety plans, the Observer reported.
CATS was also cited for 18 findings of non-compliance in the FTA’s report. Those included not implementing required risk assessment processes for transit worker assaults, not establishing a process to annually assess safety performance and not establishing a required risk reduction program for bus services.
‘No real communication’
Implementing CATS rider bans has been flawed, critics say.
“Operators have come to me and have stated that there is no real-time communication or data being shared to where the operators are aware of who has been banned or not,” Nichel Dunlap, a member of CATS’ Public Transit Advisory Committee and a former CATS driver, told the Observer in an interview.
Many banned riders over the last two years have threatened or committed violence against CATS bus and rail operators, the agency’s records show.
Passengers who receive multiple bans often continue to pose problems. During 2024 and 2025, more than 80% of those riders were banned again within 6 months of being allowed back on the system, records show.
Sometimes repeat bans happen quickly. One rider, Christopher Alexander, was banned for a year on May 14, 2025 for assaulting a security officer and was banned again for a year just two days later for assaulting a CATS contractor on the Blue Line platform, records obtained by the Observer show.
Another rider received a one-year ban on April 20, 2025 for assaulting a CATS employee, second-degree trespass and disorderly conduct. Just five days later, that rider received another one-year ban for simple assault, though CATS records do not specify who was assaulted.
Improvements to the CATS rider-ban system and operators’ safety have been proposed. That includes the possible facial recognition software that CATS has mentioned and installing bullet-resistant barriers that would enclose bus drivers.
But it may take too long before those could become a reality, Dunlap said.
“CATS is working very strategically, but they’re not working quickly enough, because we continue to see violence upon the rails, violence upon our buses, and we continue to see the residents of Mecklenburg County are being placed into systems that do not support restorative services,” Dunlap said. “We’re out of time.”
Amber Gaudet
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