TACOMA, Wash. — Prosecutors in Pierce County, Wash., have filed a felony charge against a 65-year-old Tacoma man accused with derailing one car of an oil train to derail on Tuesday in Tacoma’s Tideflats industrial area.
The Tacoma News Tribune reports the man was charged in Pierce County Superior Court with a felony count of malicious injury to railroad property. The car involved was part of a BNSF Railway train, the News Tribune reports — a correction of its original report which said a Tacoma Rail train was involved.
The News Tribune does not name defendants in non-violent crimes. It reports that according to court records, the man has a history of mental health issues, having first been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1980. He has been hospitalized at least 10 times and has a criminal history in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Ohio, and Illinois.
Court documents report that the train’s conductor told police that he was walking along the train after an emergency brake application to determine the cause, and saw the defendant throwing a switch lever back and forth. Movement of the switch while the train was passing caused the derailment, he said. Rail and port workers then followed the man until he was detained.
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