[BeanerMan]

[url:48a30]http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-012605crash_lat,0,6086765.story?coll=la-home-headlines[/url:48a30]

[quote:48a30]10 Dead as Metrolink Trains Collide
One of the trains hits a car parked on the tracks and then hits a second train.

By Michael Muskal and Jesus Sanchez, Times Staff Writers

At least 10 people died and nearly 200 were injured this morning when two commuter trains collided after one hit a car parked on the tracks by a man intent on killing himself, officials said

Police said they had taken a man into custody and he was expected to be charged with homicide in connection with the chain reaction of crashes that left train cars mangled and seared in Glendale near the Los Angeles border. Debris including seat cushions, bloody towels and luggage discarded by fleeing passengers littered the area.

A southbound commuter train heading to downtown Los Angeles hit the Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on the tracks, said Glendale Police Chief Randy G. Adams. The train then apparently crashed into a northbound Metrolink commuter train and a Union Pacific freight train was hit and derailed, officials said. The investigation was continuing.

"This is now a homicide investigation," Adams said, adding that police had taken a man into custody. Adams identified the suspect as Juan Manuel Alvarez of Compton. He said Alvarez had attempted suicide before.

Alvarez was detained at the scene and appeared to be uninjured. He told police he had left the vehicle and watched the derailment, Adams said. He was also identified by witnesses at the scene.

Alvarez was charged with 10 counts of murder, Adams said. The suspect was distraught and remorseful and was being held on a suicide watch. He had superficial self-inflicted wounds that were treated, the chief said.

Alvarez, who will celebrate his 26th birthday on Feb. 26, had prior drug arrests, Adams said.

"This whole incident was started by a deranged individual that was suicidal," the chief told reporters.

"I think his intent at that time was to take his own life, but changed his mind prior to the train actually striking this vehicle," the chief said. "He exited the vehicle and stood by as the southbound Metrolink train struck his vehicle, causing the train to derail and strike the northbound train."

Glendale Mayor Bob Yousefian said that Juan Alvarez "kind of ran, tried to hide, but because of his previous injuries, he got apprehended."

When asked why Alvarez was in Glendale, the mayor responded, "He came to Glendale to commit suicide."

Officials described the incident as the worst local rail disaster in recent memory.

A National Transportation Safety Board team was headed to the scene. The Glendale Police Department was leading the criminal investigation, with LAPD and the Sheriff's Department assisting.

The 6 a.m. crash set off minor fires and diesel fuel spills as rescuers rushed to the scene at San Fernando Road and Chevy Chase Drive. The area is near where Burbank, Glendale and Atwater Village in Los Angeles meet.

"This is unbelievably tragic," an angry Sheriff Lee Baca told reporters at the scene. "It is a complete outrage as far as transportation safety is concerned."

At a joint news conference with Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton and Glendale's Adams, Baca said he was especially angry because one of the dead was identified as Deputy James Tutino, a 23-year veteran of the Sheriff's Department. He was aboard the southbound train, heading to work from Simi Valley.

Three LAPD employees were hospitalized and one was unaccounted for, Bratton said.

The death toll steadily climbed as the sun rose. By 10:30 a.m. the count hit 10. Fire officials said 123 people were treated and transported to 13 area hospitals. About 60 people were treated at the scene and released. Most of the injured were treated in the light rain at a triage center established in a nearby Costco parking lot.

A Glendale Memorial Hospital spokeswoman said that at least five patients were considered critical.

Television stations showed hundreds of tons of wreckage from the commuter trains and officials reported traffic delays throughout the area. The commute on the Ventura and Antelope Valley lines was disrupted indefinitely as officials used buses to transport commuters between Union Station and the Burbank station.

More than 300 firefighters combed through the derailed trains looking for trapped passengers. As firefights cleared each car, they garishly marked the side giving the cars an eerie look as they formed a twisted zig-zag pattern next to the tracks.

Bamattre said at least five passes had been completed through the scene. By 9 a.m. the focus has shifted from rescue to recovery, officials said.

"It's been a nightmare," passenger Leanne Lopez told a reporter.

One Metrolink train, the 901, left Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and the other, train 100, was heading into Los Angeles. Officials said the trains usually carried 200 to 250 passengers. The top speed is 79 mph, though the trains were believed to be traveling at less than the maximum.

David Morrison, 47, an attorney, was heading to downtown Los Angeles on his regular morning commute. He said he that he got on train 100 at 5:19 a.m. at Simi Valley.

"I heard the crash. It sounded like the train was dragging something across the tracks," he told The Times. "There was a violent lurch and everything came to a stop."

He said the passengers fled amid the smell of diesel fumes.

Goddard Paialii, 53, of Woodland Hills, a communications electrician for the city of Los Angeles, said he boarded the train in Chatsworth and rode in the lead car. He was upstairs and said he was trying to nap, listening to his I-Pod.

After the crash, the train "appeared to be dragging whatever it hit. At that point, I just braced myself. Computers, seat pads, briefcases were flying all over. There was lots of smoke in the car."

But the exodus remained orderly.

"Everybody was trying to help everybody else get out," Paialii said. "The train I was in was entirely ripped out. We went out through a gaping hole," Paialii said.

He stepped over a woman who complained of back and neck injuries and said she did not want to move. He carried one injured man to a fence nearby.

Cathie Fransen, 57 was riding with her friend Ken Milds, 55, in the middle car. Fransen said she has ridden the train regularly for 12 1/2 years and was in the aisle seat, second floor, middle car. She does community relations for IBM in Glendale.

"It was very terrifying. We had seconds to think about what was going on," she said.

After the derailment, as the cars skidded, she said it felt like "it kept going and going. We were holding our breath."

The entire wreck of all three trains was contained between a gray warehouse and the brick wall of Costco. A single train car was propped at an almost perfect 45-degree angle from the tracks, a signal bridge crumpled over it, its upper corner resting lightly on the tracks. The car in front of it, still attached, was tilted at about an 80-degree angle, its wheels still just barely resting on the track.

And to the south a third car lay fully on its side, back right corner a mess of debris. An engine and a Metrolink car to the south remained on the tracks upright and relatively untouched, but behind these another attached car stood upright but almost at right angles across the track.

All along the ground, large metal pieces of the side of the train and gray upholstered seats were scattered like discarded food wrappers. On the train cars, windows gaped or were shattered in their frames.

Each of the cars by midmorning were scribbled with neon orange spray paint from the firefighters, who had numbered them. On the warehouse behind the train people gathered to look down on the wreckage.

The accident occurred just north of the Costco store in a shopping center on Los Feliz Boulevard, where it was drizzling and dark, witnesses said.

"We heard a loud boom and the building shook," said Jenny Doll, 30, a Costco clerk from Monterey Park.

Employees took fire extinguishers from the store shelves and ran outside to help.

"Everybody was helping and trying to get people out of the train," said Doll, who was taking food and water from the store for firefighters at the site.

Ruben Cabrera, the 37-year-old store manager, said he first thought the noise of the crash was thunder, but soon his receiving dock called and told him there had been an accident.

"It was chaos. I was trying to keep a level head, and I didn't want to lose any employees," he said.

Inside the store, passengers were processed by officials trying to account for everyone on board. Once done, the commuters filed out and sat on white picnic benches in front of a snack stand.

An hour after the crash, crews worked on the wreckage as about 50 passengers waited nearby.

They sat in work clothes with tags around their neck: Name, Age, Condition.

One firefighter walked among the walking wounded shouting: "Who needs to go to the hospital? Who needs to go to the hospital?"

A few people raised their hands.

Then firefighters went person to person asking if anything else was needed and how they were feeling.

Staff writers Peter Hong, Jill Leovy, David Pierson and Erica Williams contributed to this report.
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Fucked up stuff. It happened 7 miles from where I live. I frequently go to that area because there is a costco and best buy there. They used the parking lot to treat the injured. What a fucking retart the guy that wanted to commit suicide. The dumb mother fucker should have put a bullet to his head instead of trying to take all those people with him. On top of that he was a dang beaner. What a disgrace. cuss: annoy: