Update: Charges Filed Against Man Accused of Triggering Train Disaster

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Prosecutors filed charges late Wednesday against the suicidal Compton man who authorities believe triggered the collision of two Metrolink commuter trains near Glendale that killed 11 and injured nearly 200.


L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley said prosecutors filed charges against Juan Manuel Alvarez for 10 counts of murder with “special circumstances” of committing murder via a train derailment. Cooley said the complaint would be amended to add another count to refer to the 11th victim, found in the wreckage late Wednesday night.


Under state law, special circumstances allegations could make a defendant eligible for the death penalty.


A release from Cooley’s office Thursday said a decision to seek the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole would be made at a later date.


Arraignment was planned for Thursday afternoon, but was delayed due to Alvarez’s medical condition.


Alvarez, who is said to have left a Jeep Cherokee parked on a stretch of railroad tracks in an apparently aborted suicide attempted, is under suicide watch in the jail ward at County-USC Hospital.


As of early Thursday morning, authorities said they believed everyone aboard the trains had been accounted for. Later in the day, the crash scene is expected to be turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board and then to Metrolink and Union Pacific officials as the cleanup process begins.


Both Metrolink and Union Pacific service is expected to be disrupted for at least several days.


News reports on Thursday described Alvarez as an occasional construction worker who has been estranged from his wife and has had a history of drug abuse. The Los Angeles Times reported that while Alavarez has never been convicted of a serious crime, he has been arrested on suspicion of burglary and drug possession. A cocaine charge was dismissed.


One of the commuter trains was propelled into a Union Pacific Corp. locomotive that was parked overnight on a side track, said Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley. The train was to haul rocks to the Santa Barbara area, where the company was repairing damaged tracks leading from the rail yards east of downtown L.A., up the coast to Oakland. Union Pacific was administering the repairs by day and hauling freight along the route at night, said Bromley.


Metrolink owns both of the tracks involved in the crash, which occurred just before 6 a.m., Wednesday.


L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca told reporters Alvarez’s SUV was struck by one of the commuter trains at a crossing near San Fernando Road and Chevy Chase Drive in the vicinity of Atwater Village. That collision led to a chain reaction that caused one of the trains to derail and smash into the Union Pacific train. A second Metrolink train was then struck.

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