Re: Charges Possible In San Jose toddler killed by train


<earthage2002@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1132676431.070200.225520@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=3656601
> Charges Possible In Toddler's Death
> Mother Did Not Know Woman
> By Kelly Ryan
>
> Nov. 22 - KGO - A San Jose mother is grieving the death of her
> two-year-old son, left in the care of a babysitter the mom says she
> doesn't even know. The little boy died Tuesday after wandering onto a
> railroad track. Now his babysitter could face criminal charges.
>
> Twenty-two-year-old Nicole Wilson was at a new job Monday when she got
> a call from police saying her son had been killed. It turns out she
> didn't know the woman the child was with.
>
> Wilson said she left her two boys in the care of the babysitter. That
> babysitter reportedly handed off the children to her roommate. Around
> 11:00 a.m., that roommate was taking the two boys across two sets of
> tracks to go to McDonald's. She went back over the tracks to get her
> three-month-old son, who was in a stroller. She told the boys to stay
> put.
>
> Two-year-old Alexander followed her, and was truck by an Amtrak train
> traveling as fast as 79 miles per hour.



WTF? An Amtrak train going 79 miles per hour? What kind of idiot leaves
any child that close to a train tracks with a train coming?



td



>
> Officer Gina Tepoorten, San Jose police department: "Being a parent,
> it's an extremely tragic incident, and I can't imagine what that small
> child's mother must be facing right now."
>
> The area where the woman crossed is not a legal crossing, but
> apparently it's used all the time. Even as police were investigating on
> Monday, people were continuing to cross illegally.
>
> This woman, as we mentioned, could face criminal charges - such as
> involuntary manslaughter or child endangerment.
> ====================
> Posted on Tue, Nov. 22, 2005
> Toddler killed by train in San Jose
> By Julia Prodis Sulek
> San Jose Mercury News
>
> A young South San Jose mother left her two children in the care of a
> family friend when she went to a new job Monday -- but that wasn't the
> woman who was with the boys when one of them was killed by a train.
>
> ``I have no clue who she is,'' Nicole Wilson said. ``She's not going to
> get away with it.''
>
> The woman -- Wilson's babysitter's roommate -- was taking the two boys
> across two sets of train tracks at 11 a.m. to the McDonald's near
> Monterey Highway and Blossom Hill Road. She had successfully gotten the
> boys across the tracks, but went back to retrieve her own 3-month-old
> son, who was in his stroller. She had told the boys to stay put, police
> said, but the 2-year-old, Alexander, wandered after her and was struck
> by an Amtrak train traveling as fast as 79 mph.
>
> ``What person would walk a toddler over the train tracks,'' Wilson, a
> 22-year-old single mother, said Monday night. ``Even if her baby is in
> that stroller -- her baby is 3 months old, he's not going to run away.
> I don't get it.''
>
> The death, at Monterey Highway under the Blossom Hill Road overpass, is
> being investigated by the homicide unit of the San Jose Police
> Department. Police questioned the woman into the night. She could face
> charges of involuntary manslaughter, child neglect or both, said police
> spokeswoman Gina Tepoorten.
>
> Wilson said she had left her children, Alexander, 2, and Elijah, 4,
> with a family friend when she left about 9:30 a.m. for a job
> orientation at Toys R Us. She was shocked to learn that her babysitter
> had handed the children off to a roommate.
>
> Wilson got the news about 1 p.m. while waiting for a ride home. A Toys
> R Us employee came running out, telling her the police were on the
> phone. That's when a detective told her she needed to go to the
> station.
>
> ``Can you at least tell me if they're alive?'' Wilson asked.
>
> ``One of them is,'' the detective responded, but she didn't know which
> child until she arrived at the police department and heard her older
> son asking for her.
>
> ``My son said, `Brother got hit by a choo-choo train. Blood is
> everywhere, and he has an owie,' '' Wilson said.
>
> Her two sons were so close that on Alexander's second birthday last
> month, she said, all he wanted was his brother. ``He was always happy.
> He loved his brother. He always had a smile on his face.''
>
> Alexander's greatest fear was trains, Wilson said. ``He'll hear a train
> and make one of us hold him,'' she said. ``He's scared. For him to get
> killed by one is not right. It's the worst thing.''
>
> Crossing the Union Pacific tracks on that stretch is considered
> trespassing, but it is a law that is clearly ignored by residents in
> the area.
>
> While police were collecting evidence Monday afternoon, dozens of
> people crossed the tracks -- from teenagers at Oak Grove High School
> heading to their homes to people with shopping baskets going to
> Wal-Mart and Albertsons at Monterey Plaza.
>
> The nearest official pedestrian crossing is a half-mile north of
> Blossom Hill Road, at Chynoweth Avenue, where traffic lights and
> mechanical arm barriers signal oncoming trains.
>
> But near the spot where Alexander was hit there are two sets of
> crosswalks on Monterey Highway that dead-end into the railroad's
> right-of-way. There is no fence to prevent pedestrians from reaching
> the tracks.
>
> Crossing there may be quicker than using the official crossing, but it
> is still not easy for one person -- much less someone traveling with
> two small children and an infant.
>
> Pedestrians must cross the four lanes of Monterey Highway, then
> navigate a wide, rutted dirt median littered with trash, up a rocky
> berm, across two sets of raised tracks, down the other side, then
> across a two-lane frontage road.
>
> ``I see a lot of kids walk over here. The trains come fast,'' said Wais
> Shire, 37, who lives in an apartment complex on the east side of
> Monterey Highway. ``This is a dangerous place. Some people -- they're
> crazy.''
>
> Amtrak's Coast Starlite train, bound for Los Angeles from Seattle,
> remained stopped on the tracks until nearly 3 p.m. while some of its
> 224 passengers were interviewed as possible witnesses.
>
> The train was not scheduled to stop at the upcoming Ford Road station,
> so it was traveling at the near-maximum speed of 79 mph, said Amtrak
> spokeswoman Vernae Graham.
>
> >From January through August this year, four pedestrians in Santa Clara
> County were killed in train accidents. Statewide during the same time,
> 56 people were killed.
>
> Wilson said she confronted the family friend late Monday. The woman
> kept apologizing and said she trusted her roommate with the children.
>
> ``No,'' Wilson said she shot back. ``I trusted you.''
>


.

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