A San Francisco man was charged with murder Thursday for the fatal stabbing of a 49-year-old man on a BART train at the transit agency’s South Hayward station on Tuesday afternoon.
Jermaine Brim, 39, is scheduled to be arraigned on the murder charge and four other felony counts at a hearing before Judge Armando Cuellar in Department 712 at the East County Hall of Justice at 5151 Gleason Drive in
Dublin at 2 p.m. Thursday.
BART police said Brim, who had walked away from San Leandro Hospital sometime earlier, got into a physical confrontation with 49-year-old Oakland resident Oliver Williams after Brim tried to steal shoes from another passenger who apparently was asleep and Williams intervened.
Police said Williams took out a knife during his confrontation with Brim, but Brim was able to control the knife and allegedly used it to stab Williams multiple times.
A witness described the suspect as a black man wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, camouflage pants and no shoes and said he had run down the stairs from the platform at the South Hayward station to its concourse level, BART police Officer Ronald Rodriguez wrote in a probable cause statement.
In the meantime, Williams had suffered multiple stab wounds to his neck and was pronounced dead at 1:09 p.m. Tuesday, according to Rodriguez.
At about the same time, Hayward police notified BART police that a man matching the description of the suspect had been spotted near Tennyson Road and Mission Boulevard, near the South Hayward station, Rodriguez wrote.
Witnesses told police that the suspect was now shirtless, still barefoot and was trying to wash off blood from his body and clothing at a gas station at Tennyson and Mission, according to Rodriguez.
The suspect then ran over to an auto dealership next door, grabbed the keys for a car from salesman Steven Castro and attempted to steal the vehicle but it didn’t start, Rodriguez wrote.
He then ran into the street, stopped a vehicle and tried to take that car but was unsuccessful, the officer wrote.
Officers were then able to arrest and identify Brim, according to Rodriguez. Brim, whose home address is listed as being in the 1400 block of California Street in San Francisco, is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.
A BART spokesperson said Brim had been labeled as a “missing person at-risk” after going missing from the San Leandro hospital but didn’t say when Brim left the hospital.
In addition to murder, Brim is charged with attempted second-degree robbery for trying to steal property from Williams, second-degree robbery for taking property from an unnamed victim, attempted carjacking for trying to take the car from Castro, and attempted carjacking for his second attempt to steal a car.
13 comments
Clearly it was self defense. He was was not the one who pulled out the knife.
” A petty theft does not warrant a threat with a deadly weapon.”
Self defense. Justice for
Jermaine
108RS
not a petty theft. off a person makes it a felony. whether the person is wearing or holding the shoes.
Do you not understand that the supposed good Samaritan is the one who pulled out the knife. That was his fatal mistake trying to intervene a petty theft of a pair of shoes that had nothing to do with him. Lesson here is to just mind your own business.
oh… agreed… for any theft… just pointing out was not a petty, but grand…
In a better world Brim would have been in jail instead of the San Leandro Hospital.
Killed over shoes. Terrible.
Jermaine Brim, 39, is scheduled to be arraigned on the murder charge and four other felony counts at a hearing before Judge Armando Cuellar
Is it really self defense if he stabbed the victim in the neck multiple times? It started as self defense. But when he controlled the knife and stabbed the victim multiple times, it changes things. Will probably be reduced to manslaughter.
I think Trauma is impersonating someone else or these are the same people.
I hope San Leandro Hospital is happy with their crappy supervision of Brim. If Brim was properly supervised, he woudln’t have been able to walk off and kill someone. BART’s interim police chief is a joke and Powers is also turning out to be a joke trying to convince all that BART is safe when I am there every single night to see that it is far from safe.
I agree. This crime would have not happened if not for that and he could not jump the fare gate (reasonable assumption). Liberal policies don’t always work.
This is a very tragic situation that could have been avoided for many reasons or different actions, as mentioned. In my assessment, a guy who is untrained and did not know how to properly use a knife that he mostly carried for utility, pulled a knife on someone to back them down with no actual intent on having to use it. Psycho shoe-thief by all intents shouldn’t have been able to disarm and use the knife on him. What I’m trying to say is go out and get some training. Be aware of how to use whatever you carry with you so unfortunate situations like this can truly be avoided.. Unfortunate and tragic as the outcome was. The victim should be applauded for being the only person in the train car that actually had the integrity and wherewithal to say something..
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