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To: CedarDave

Command center at Cosco. Press conference soon.


246 posted on 01/26/2005 10:01:03 AM PST by CedarDave (Democrats don't speak -- they rant!)
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To: CedarDave

Press conference starting now...


261 posted on 01/26/2005 10:14:02 AM PST by CedarDave (Democrats don't speak -- they rant!)
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To: CedarDave; All
I was able to catch the local TV coverage from shortly after the first calls came in about the derailment up until just a few minutes ago local time.

Here's a summary of the facts as of then:

At least 9 dead, including a LASD deputy in uniform on the way to work, and two Union Pacific on their train.

At least 100 wounded, about 40 critically.

Union Pacific freight train parked on siding.

One Metrolink train heading north out of L.A.'s Union Pacific station.

One Metrolink train heading south into the Burbank/L.A. area.

The northbound train hits what is believed to be a Jeep Cherokee parked on the tracks. As it attempts to stop, it screeches several hundred feet down the tracks, dragging the car under it's front end.

The car causes the train to jump the tracks and it hits the engine of the Union Pacific train. The UP engine is knocked over on its side and partially into a COSTCO parking lot.

As one car of the Metrolink train is jackknifing, as bad luck would have it, the southbound train is passing. The last car in that train sideswipes the jackknifing car, which rips open the southbound car and throws it totally off the tracks. It lands up against fencing that lines the tracks at that point. It is on the opposite side and perhaps 50 to 100 feet from where the UP engine was hit.

One of the senior fire chiefs on the scene recovered a pretty intact license plate and a driver's license from the area where the northbout Metrolink car hit the UP engine.

Because the intersection where the car was left on the tracks is in the City of Glendale, the Glendale PD is taking the investigative lead, assisted by federal authorities and LAPD and LASD.

Glendale police have taken the person "associated with" the Jeep into custody.

L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca said it appears the car was left deliberately on the tracks. However, he also said "there is no evidence" that this is a terrorist act.

L.A. City Councilman Eric Garcetti said it does appear to have been a deliberate act.

Baca said he will seek the maximum charges against the individual, up to and including murder. Homicide detectives and county cornor personnel are on the scene, which is being treated as a crime scene.

275 posted on 01/26/2005 10:19:25 AM PST by Wolfstar (Have YOU laughed at a Democrat today?)
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