A Nebraska teenager was slapped with more than one criminal mischief charge for allegedly causing a train derailment, recording the incident, and uploading the video to YouTube.
Criminal mischief charge for teen who derailed train
The 17-year-old was charged on two felony counts in Lancaster County Juvenile Court on Wednesday, but prosecutors have requested the case be moved to adult court.
According to court documents, an investigator with BNSF Railway reported that the teenager notified authorities about the derailment and suspiciously inquired about the cause of the crash to the company’s investigator.
The teenager is accused of messing with a rail, leading to the derailment of two different trains and five loaded BNSF cars in the town of Bennet on April 21.
The rail cars stayed upright, but one collided with an empty coal car, resulting in $350,000 in damages.
Before the crash, the conductor attempted an emergency stop but could not halt the train in time, according to court records.
The conductor informed a BNSF investigator that a misaligned switch caused the derailment, and a padlock that should have secured the switch was missing.
After being the one to call in the crash, the teenager sought out the company’s investigator post-accident and asked what was behind it.
When the investigator responded that the cause was unknown, the teenager callously remarked that “obviously a switch was flipped the wrong way.”
Suspicious teen gets criminal mischief charge
He described himself as a train enthusiast and showed the investigator the video he had taken of the derailment.
The minor denied trespassing on the tracks or tampering with the switch, but the investigator noted in the documents that the alleged teen criminal knew the exact location and operation of the switch.
Subsequent investigations revealed a tripod set up near the accident site just four minutes before the train derailed.”
Days after the derailment, a video of the crash was uploaded to a YouTube account that features train videos from the area. The account is believed to belong to the teen.
The investigator mentioned that a video uploaded on April 23 was titled “Loaded BNSF Arbor Collides and Derails In Bennet, NE!”
Man sparks California’s largest active fire on purpose
In a separate incident, a 42-year-old man was arrested on Thursday for allegedly pushing a car that was on fire into a ravine, which caused the devastating Park Fire, which has burned over 120,000 acres in California so far.
Witnesses saw Ronnie Dean Stout, II, of Chico, California, pushing a burning car into a gorge near a small lake in Bidwell Park on Wednesday afternoon.
He was then seen “calmly leaving the area by blending in with other citizens who were present and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire.”
“The car went down an embankment approximately 60 feet and burned completely, spreading flames that caused the Park Fire,” Butte County District Attorney Michael L. Ramsey said in a press release.
The Park Fire, which is burning 80 miles north of Sacramento, is currently California’s largest active wildfire.
By late Thursday, the fire had spread across more than 120,000 acres, with only 3% containment, Cal Fire reported.
Stout has two prior “strike” felony convictions, which will be considered along with any arson charge, prosecutors said.
In 2001, Stout was convicted in Butte County Superior Court for lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14.
In 2002, he was convicted in Kern County Superior Court for robbery with great bodily injury and was sentenced to 20 years in state prison, prosecutors stated.
Police obtained a warrant for Stout’s arrest on Thursday morning, and he was subsequently booked into the Butte County Jail, where he is being held without bail until he appears in court on Monday.
