METRO VANCOUVER - Two teenage girls facing criminal charges after a stabbing rampage on the SkyTrain system are “prolific offenders” well-known to law enforcement, police said Tuesday.

The 14- and 15-year-old girls were arrested after three people were injured, none seriously, in the Monday-night attacks.

The rampage, which involved a steak knife, began in Surrey, hit New Westminster and finally ended in Vancouver.

Transit police spokeswoman Anne Drennan said the girls are from Vancouver and often ditch school to travel through the transit system, recruiting other teens to help them cause trouble.

“They are part of what we call a loosely organized group of young people who (allegedly) commit crimes and very often commit them along the transit system.”

Drennan said the two girls have had a total of 142 run-ins with police — mostly on or near transit — over the past 15 months.

“Those offences range from everything from fare evasion to robbery,” Drennan said. “They get arrested and charged but what typically happens is they’re released on conditions and they breach those conditions.”

In the past, those conditions have included being prohibited from using transit, but Drennan didn’t know if they were under such a ban during Monday’s incident.

“We know who they are so when we see them, we monitor them, we check them as frequently as possible,” she said. “They breach the conditions, we arrest them again, they’re released on a new set of conditions and so it goes.

“It’s extremely frustrating — we have asked this time around that at least the juvenile that used the knife be remanded in custody.”

Monday’s attacks began around 11:30 p.m. when the suspects approached two young women across the street from the Gateway station in Surrey, Drennan said. “There doesn’t appear to be any motive here at all.”

An argument erupted, said Drennan, and one of the women was slashed on the arm with an eight-inch steak knife.

The woman was taken to hospital and treated for the injury. Drennan said she remains in hospital under observation.

After the woman was stabbed, the two suspects chased the other woman onto SkyTrain and confronted her with the knife, said Drennan, adding that a SkyTrain seat was also slashed.

When the suspects and woman got off the train at Columbia station in New Westminster, police say the woman was punched in the face by one of the teenage girls.

The suspects then got back on SkyTrain and got off at Joyce station in Vancouver, where Drennan said they stabbed a man holding a pizza box. She said the man defended himself with the pizza box and only suffered a small cut on his hand.

The suspects fled and were arrested by Transit police a short distance from Joyce station.

The girls are in custody and face charges including assault with a weapon, assault causing bodily harm and possession of a weapon dangerous to the public. Transit police are looking for witnesses and ask anyone who may have seen something to call 604-515-8300.

ticrawford@vancouversun.com

mhager@postmedia.com