WASHINGTON (AP) — An 18-year-old man has been charged in the fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old boy in what marks the second homicide at the same Metro station in just over two weeks, police said Tuesday.

Jovante Hall of northeast Washington has been charged with second-degree murder while armed in Monday’s stabbing death of John Rufus Evans III, a court record shows.

Assistant Chief Peter Newsham said Hall and Evans knew each other and were involved in an ongoing dispute. It appears they met by chance Monday and ended up in an altercation, Newsham said. According to a court document filed Tuesday, the two first saw each other aboard a train and had a physical fight in the station. A witness told police the pair had been “engaged in a verbal altercation stemming from social media and they both threatened to harm each other physically.”

An online court record shows Hall was ordered held until a hearing April 22. An attorney listed online for him did not immediately return an email Tuesday afternoon requesting comment.

Even though the stabbing is the second homicide in just over two weeks at the Deanwood Metro station, Newsham stressed that he did not want “the message to be out there that riding the Metro is unsafe.”

“At least that’s not been my experience,” he said.

He blamed the latest crime on “young people with weapons” who are “using them to resolve disputes.”

Accompanying Newsham at the news conference, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser reminded residents and visitors that the rail system has surveillance cameras throughout and promised that anyone who commits a crime in the system “will be brought to justice.” Bowser noted the youth of both the victim and suspect in Monday’s stabbing and in the fatal shooting of a teen last month in which another teen has been charged .

“What we want to be sure of is that we’re telling our young people that the way to resolve conflict is not to engage in these very significant altercations,” Bowser said.

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Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com

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