MetroRail Trial

28Apr08

Juan Manuel Alvarez is in court this morning, charged with 11 counts of murder after the January 2005 train derailment he’s accused of causing.  Alvarez’s attorneys say it was a suicide attempt that he had second thoughts on but that he couldn’t move his Jeep off the tracks because it was stuck.  Prosecutors, on the other hand, say there’s no sign of suicide - only that Alvarez had doused his ride with gasoline and set the emergency brake before he ran away from the scene.

I was in Salt Lake City when this happened and yet remember it quite well.  I remember watching news coverage from Channel 4 about it and how at first there was worry it might be terror-related.  And then to find out it was a failed suicide attempt and now with two sides to the story, it’ll be interesting to see how jurors decide Alvarez’s fate.  In putting together this morning’s coverage, I watched former stories about the incident and about jury selection - how so many thought an impartial jury would be difficult to find.  And yet here we are, on day one of the trial.

The saddest part of the story, perhaps, is the victims of the crash.  Alvarez is accused of parking his Jeep Grand Cherokee on the tracks - a southbound Metro train slammed into it, derailed and caused a northbound train to slam into the wreckage as well.  The victims has always ridden the train.  In fact, although they may or may not have spent time outside the train as friends, most of them knew eachother - at least by face - because they all rode the same way, the same time, all the time.  I was particularly intrigued by a story Channel 4 did about a man who thought he was going to die having been pinned underneath the wreckage, bleeding.  He took his blood and wrote on the train itself, “I love my kids” and “I love Luise” (his wife).  He survived.

And since the crash, MTA has been slapped with lawsuits, none of which name Alvarez.  The lawsuits stem from certain specifics about how the trains work and how a poor system lead to so many deaths.

As Juan Manuel Alvarez awaits his fate, the Channel 4 News Team continues its coverage.  Stay tuned.

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Tags: derail, Jeep, Juan Manuel Alvarez, MetroRail, tracks