Trump administration to investigate MARTA after stabbing attacks

The Trump administration on Thursday launched an investigation of MARTA’s safety and security after a 66-year-old woman was stabbed to death while sitting alone on a train Saturday morning.

The Federal Transit Administration wants to know what MARTA does to prevent crime and make sure all passengers have paid fares, something the system has struggled to prevent for years. MARTA police say the man accused of killing Margaret Swan on Saturday had not paid to be on the train that day.

“I want ANSWERS from Atlanta,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote on social media. “Margaret’s family DESERVES ACCOUNTABILITY. No one should be forced to fear for their safety on public transit.”

The investigation is another setback for the troubled transit agency, which has been operating for nearly a year with interim leadership after its former general manager and CEO retired. Just this week, MARTA had to cancel the rollout of its new rail cars because it missed deadlines to certify the trains were safe.

The FTA’s inquiry also comes just days before MARTA is set to welcome hundreds of thousands of fans to Atlanta for FIFA World Cup matches. It’s the latest safety investigation the Trump-led FTA has opened into transit agencies in Democratic-run cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. The agency launched a similar inquiry into Charlotte’s public transit agency in North Carolina last year following the killing of Iryna Zarutska.

MARTA spokesperson Stephany Fisher said the agency has made “significant investments in personnel, technology, and operational measures,” adding they “support safety and security across our entire system.”

“We welcome the opportunity to share with federal officials the hard work that the MARTA team puts in every day,” she said.

The FTA has given MARTA 15 days to submit detailed information showing its budget for passenger and employee safety. The federal agency said it is particularly concerned about the transit agency’s crime rate.

The FTA says that, since October 2023, violent crimes resulting in injuries that required medical attention or death have happened on MARTA nearly twice as often as the national average.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of the federal data the agency cites identified 90 such crimes in a system that had 170 million passenger trips during that timeframe.

That’s about one crime for every 1.9 million trips on a MARTA train or bus. Across all transit systems nationwide, the rate is about one crime for every 3.5 million trips.

The FTA also found that between October and the end of January, the most recent month for which data is available, those kinds of crimes on MARTA trains happened more than three times the national average. That represents one crime per 1.5 million trips on MARTA trains compared to one crime per 5.6 million trips nationally.

An AJC analysis of the federal data computed the crime rates using the number of trips taken on MARTA, and it appears the FTA did the same. The agency’s figures match when the rate is calculated per trip.

But when the same crimes are measured against the total miles MARTA’s trains and buses traveled in that period, the rate is roughly the same as the national average — about one crime per 1.7 million miles on MARTA compared with one per 1.8 million miles on transit nationwide.

Saturday’s attack was random, police say. Swan had boarded the train just minutes before her attacker struck, according to the arrest warrant. The man came up to Swan, drew his knife and slashed her throat.

Federal prosecutors charged John Elijah Matthews, 25, with committing an act of violence causing death on a mass transportation system. He also faces a state charge of malice murder.

In a second stabbing incident that was referenced in the FTA’s letter, two men — who authorities say did not know each other — got into an argument at the Georgia State MARTA station May 24. The man “who instigated the fight was stabbed multiple times” and had non-life-threatening injuries, according to MARTA.

David Ward, head of the union representing MARTA employees, said he welcomed the federal investigation.

Speaking from Washington, where he and other union officials were lobbying federal officials, Ward said that the union’s own calls for increased protections haven’t been taken seriously.

He said operators are routinely spit on, attacked and demeaned by passengers and don’t always get fast help when they call for backup from MARTA police.

“Can you imagine being on a 40-foot bus and it’s loaded to capacity and an operator’s attacked?” Ward said. “You have all these lives on this bus that you have to protect.”

Several riders on Thursday said they also welcomed the federal investigation. Rebecca Doria-Sanchez, 20, was sitting off to the side of a MARTA bus stop with mace clutched in her hand.

“I feel like the last time I saw security in a MARTA station was a whole year ago,” she said.

MARTA Police Chief Scott Kreher and other MARTA officials have long acknowledged there’s a gap between the amount of crime reported on the system and the public’s perception.

The agency identified safety as a “north star” last year and pledged to hire more police officers. In May 2025, 16% of officer positions were vacant; as of this week, 9% are unfilled, according to Kreher. The department added positions in that timeframe.

“We have challenges like every police department hiring good, quality candidates,” Kreher said, noting 18 new recruits graduated from the police academy last week.

He said the department will cooperate fully with the federal investigation.

“I look forward to showing the world what great work my women and men do every day,” Kreher said.

Rick Jackson and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, two Republicans facing each other in a contentious runoff for governor later this month, both praised the Trump administration for launching an investigation. Jones pledged that, if elected, he would deploy Georgia State Patrol troopers to MARTA trains to keep people safe.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Democratic nominee for governor, said in a statement Thursday she was “... heartbroken to learn of the senseless death of Margaret Swan and I’m praying for her family.

“As governor, I will support funding from the state government to recruit, train, and retain more MARTA officers to help keep people safe,” Bottoms said.“I will also work with local and federal leaders on any responsible and reasonable efforts to increase resources for safety on our public transit systems.”

Transit advocates on Thursday said they did not want to see Saturday’s attack politicized. Darin Givens, the co-founder of ThreadATL, an urbanism advocacy organization, questioned whether the Trump administration was taking advantage of the high-profile incident to make a point about Democratic-run cities.