A collision between a METRO light rail train and an SUV sends three people – including an undercover police officer – to the hospital.It happened around 3:30pm Saturday when a Ford Expedition and a light rail train collided on Main and Alabama. Police tell us the undercover officer was driving the SUV and he pulled in front of the train, causing the collision.
The officer and two passengers on the train were taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The officer was off-duty at the time of the accident. There’s no word if he will be ticketed.
If being in an accident wasn’t bad enough, police say someone stole the officer’s cell phone and watch. Investigators hope surveillance video on the train caught the thief.
Just because a person has a badge and a uniform does not relieve them of responsibility for their actions! Too bad there are so many cops like this dolt out there![B)]
zardoz : >>>
sometimes it is hard to live on both sides of the badge ,isin’t it? Hope he didn’t think the engineer was in the wrong . That’s not a good way to stop a train.
I actually had a cop park his squad on a grade crossing in front of my train; he stood there holding his arm in the “Halt” position until he realized (too late) that I wasn’t stopping for him. He wasn’t hurt, but his squad needed to be recycled afterwards. And it was kinda fun (once I knew he would not be hurt) to watch him scramble out of the way, and to see the look on his face as he realized that his squad was about to become scrap.
It depends on the state- in Alabama some departments call it a 10-52 (accident).
And yes, the cop can and probably will be cited. Police officers and sheriff’s deputies are just as liable to catch tickets- particularly on high profile violations like this one. As he is “undercover” he will probably lose his assignment… and end up in front of his Sergeant, or Lieutenant for a “what in the @#$! do you think you were doing?” speech.
Operation Lifesaver had a case study of a cop trying to stop a train with lights and sirens. He was parked right on a main line. The reason why the cop was trying to stop the train was because he was escorting a funeral. The engineer managed to stop the train…
Every profession has its dunderheads. Lawyers get arrested, doctors are overweight and smoke, etc, etc. In this case, the cop was off-duty, so it sounds like another simple case of either not paying attention or trying to beat the train. If it was his own vehicle, his status as a cop is secondary - sure, he should have known better, but so should everyone else…
Be very careful - in NY State, cops can exceed the posted speed limit for no reason whatsoever (the stories I’ve heard…), and I imagine other states are similar. I have heard it told that people have been stopped after they were clocked behind a patrol car. [:(!]
I always figure that if I’m running pretty much with traffic (even if the traffic is running15 mph over the posted [:0]) I’m generally not going to get hassled too much, unless I’m mixing in some behavior that makes me stand out.
Zardoz, reminds me of the rookie cop who tried to stop a train for a funeral procession. That didn’t work out so well for him, either. Luckily, for him, it didn’t lead to another funeral.
There was an episode of Cops (c’mon, we all watch the TV show, its a guilty pleasure, the main thing is to see some of America’s Finest do stupid things along with the folks they are arresting). The officer was pursuing a guy on a moto-cross bike that failed to pull over for the red and blue lights, and the moto-cross scofflaw took a turn on to the railroad tracks (bad scofflaw! – on one should drive on tracks!), and lets just say that the office kept going and got the squad car hung up on the rails. With a train bearing down.
I guess it ended well – the switches were lined up to take the train on a different route and the officer avoided the paperwork of dealing with a compressed squad car and his radio dispatcher alerted the railroad. Yes, I know we should respect police, but police are human too and there is a guilty pleasure of seeing people in authority make mistakes.