A Minneapolis man already accused of fatally stabbing his friend and leaving the body on a bike path is newly charged with attacking a Metro Transit employee and a bystander on a St. Paul light-rail platform.

Abdirahman O. Yusuf, 25, was charged Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court with two counts of second-degree assault in connection with a violent outburst on Aug. 7 at the Green Line station at Snelling Avenue.

Yusuf has been in the Hennepin County jail since Aug. 20, charged with second-degree murder in the Aug. 12 killing of Burka O. Mohammed, 21, of Minneapolis.

Authorities have yet to disclose a motive for the killing of Mohammed, whose body was found in the 200 block of West River Parkway near the Franklin Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis. He was stabbed 14 times.

According to the assault charges:

The transit worker told police that she heard commotion coming from Snelling and University avenues and saw Yusuf and another man jumping on cars at the intersection.

The two went into a drugstore, and Yusuf came out to the platform with a walking cane and hit the woman in the back of the head.

Video surveillance in the area confirmed the woman's account and showed him hitting her twice in the head with a two-handed swing of the cane "as if he was hitting a baseball as hard as he could," the criminal complaint read.

After the woman fled covering her head with her arms, Yusuf scanned for other targets and hit a 19-year-old woman in the head with a one-handed swing of the cane. Yusuf's pursuit of still more victims came to a halt when a man stepped in and subdued him with a bear hug.

The charges did not identify the women Yusuf allegedly hit or detail the severity of their injuries.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482