Woman arrested after allegedly waving knife at bus stop in Chillum

Prince George’s County police arrested a woman at the bus stop on East-West Highway and New Hampshire Avenue in Chillum after officers say she waved a knife at people waiting there and then fought with police during the arrest.

The confrontation happened around 6:22 p.m. Aug. 4, in one of the county’s busiest corridors for bus riders moving between Chillum, Hyattsville and the District. Exclusive video from the scene shows the struggle between the woman and officers as they worked to take her into custody.

The incident puts a familiar local worry back in view: how safe people are when they are standing at a bus stop, often with nowhere to move but the curb. East-West Highway and New Hampshire Avenue is a major transit intersection, and a knife in a crowd of waiting riders can turn an ordinary commute into a fast-moving police response.

Bus-stop encounters in Prince George’s County have drawn attention before. On Jan. 25, 2024, NBC4 Washington reported that police took a woman into custody after she stabbed two people and hit others with her car in a series of attacks in Prince George’s County. Another NBC4 Washington video story, “Search for Man Who Grabbed Woman at Bus Stop in Prince George’s County,” showed that bus-stop incidents have also included assaults and other public-safety calls, not just routine disorder.

Taken together, those cases show why the Chillum arrest is likely to resonate with riders who depend on bus service along the East-West Highway corridor. For commuters, the issue is not only the presence of police after a crisis starts, but whether visible prevention at the stop can keep a confrontation from escalating from a disorder call into a fight with officers.