(The Associated Press circulated the following article on January 27.)
GLENDALE, Calif. — The man whom authorities say caused the chain-reaction train derailment that killed 11 people could face murder charges for leaving his sport utility vehicle on a railroad track after apparently changing his mind about committing suicide. Nearly 200 were injured.
Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, got out of his green Jeep Cherokee just before the two commuter trains crashed just before dawn Wednesday on the outskirts of Los Angeles. He stood by and watched the gruesome collision, which scattered wreckage and bodies over a quarter-mile of track.
“This whole incident was started by a deranged individual that was suicidal,” Glendale police Chief Randy Adams said Wednesday.
Alvarez was arrested and expected to be charged either Thursday or Friday with manslaughter or murder, authorities said.
“The state of mind of the suspect is a central issue, what led him to do whatever acts he did do,” said Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley.
The crash was the worst U.S. rail tragedy since March 15, 1999, when an Amtrak train hit a truck and derailed near Bourbonnais, Ill., killing 11 people and injuring more than 100.
“I hope that we’re able to assess this in a way that we can figure out: Is there a way that we can stop one crazed individual from creating this kind of carnage?” Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn told reporters.
Among the two women and nine men killed was a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy on his way to work. About two dozen people were hospitalized in critical condition, while some people believed to have been on the trains were still listed as missing.
Alvarez was also taken to a hospital with apparently self-inflicted slash wounds to his wrists and knife injuries on his chest. He was listed in stable condition, and police Sgt. Tom Lorenz said he was cooperating with authorities.
Alvarez’s estranged wife, Carmelita Alvarez, had ordered him out of her home months ago, her family said, and in November she went to court seeking a temporary restraining order keeping him away from herself, their 3-year-old son, her mother, brother and other family members.
“He is using drugs and has been in and out of rehab twice,” she said in asking for the restraining order, which was granted Dec. 14. “He threatened to take our kid away and to hurt my family members,” she added. “He is planning on selling his vehicle to buy a gun and threatened to use it.”
Alvarez, who lived in a converted garage behind her sister’s home in suburban Compton, told the court her husband had damaged her family’s property and threatened to seek revenge on people he suspected of introducing her to another man. She said his drug use was triggering hallucinations.
She went into seclusion shortly after the crash.
“Whether we make any comment right now depends on my sister,” her brother, Ruben Ochoa, told The Associated Press outside the family home on Wednesday. “We’re not commenting right now.”
The victims of Wednesday’s crash included several public employees who worked in or around Los Angeles.
Among them was Los Angeles County sheriff’s Deputy James Tutino, 47, whose flag-draped body was saluted by law enforcement officers and firefighters as it was carried from the wreckage.
The force of the collision, which happened about 6 a.m., hurled passengers down the trains’ aisles.
“I heard a noise. It got louder and louder,” said passenger Diane Brady, 56, of Simi Valley. “And next thing I knew the train tilted, everyone was screaming and I held onto a pole for dear life. I held on for what seemed like a week and a half it seemed. It was a complete nightmare.”
First on the scene were workers at a Costco store next to the tracks. They helped take some of the injured away in shopping carts. Uninjured passengers also joined the rescue effort. As a light rain fell, more than 300 firefighters climbed ladders into windows of battered train cars to rescue scores of injured.
Costco employee Hugo Moran said an elderly man covered in blood and soot and with apparent broken arms and legs was pulled out of the wreckage but died soon after. Before he died, he thanked his rescuers and asked them to pray for him.
Another trapped man had used his own blood to write a note on a seat bottom. Using the heart symbol, he wrote “I love my kids” and “I love Leslie.”
The man’s identity wasn’t known, but Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Capt. Rex Vilaubi said he was removed from the wreckage alive.