(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The 2024 killing of Mirna Arauz Soza, a 67-year-old grandmother, shocked Los Angeles and caused national outrage over soft-on-crime policies in the metro system. Now, two years after Soza was brutally attacked aboard a train, local officials are fighting to prevent the release of footage of the harrowing murder.
Elliot Tramel Nowden, 47, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after several run-ins with police. A jury convicted him of murder after he stabbed and robbed Soza while she was riding the Metro at 5 a.m. following an overnight shift.
City Journal contributing editor Chris Rufo said Wednesday that the Manhattan Institute, City Journal’s publisher, has filed a lawsuit to force the release of footage documenting the killing.
According to Rufo, the footage could provide a fuller picture of Soza’s final moments. Some details of her injuries are known. Soza suffered a fatal stab wound to her neck and reportedly tried to stop the bleeding with her hands. Her family said she collapsed near the train platform and bled to death roughly an hour later near a set of stairs.
LA Metro has declined to release the video, citing apparent family privacy, despite Soza’s three surviving children reportedly petitioning for its release. Most recently, LA Metro claimed that releasing the footage was not in the “public interest.”
Rufo has argued that LA Metro is attempting to block the release to avoid public scrutiny over conditions on the transit system.
“Between 2020 and 2025, crime in the system more than doubled,” Rufo wrote in his story. “About half of all riders reportedly don’t pay, and more than 90 percent of violent criminals on Metro (including Nowden, according to Mirna’s family) evade fares. Metro could catch criminals like Mirna’s murderer at the gates, if only it tried.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who is facing an uphill battle for reelection against an even more leftist candidate, serves as chair of the Metro Board and oversees the entire transit agency, according to City Journal.
The lawsuit comes as City Journal and Rufo continue to shed light on controversial policies in California, including a taxpayer-funded center that allegedly distributes drug paraphernalia to addicts. In July 2026, Rufo published a report detailing shocking statistics about crime on Los Angeles’ Metro system.
Headline USA has reached out to City Journal for more information about its lawsuit.
We’re suing the LA Metro.
In 2024, a savage criminal brutally stabbed a grandmother to death on the train. Metro has attempted to hide the footage. We won’t let it stand. pic.twitter.com/P2UuCU5F3N
— Christopher Rufo (@christopherrufo) October 7, 2026
