Depressing Update
Last Friday night my sisters and I were on a Caltrain that assisted in the suicide of a 13-year old girl from Palo Alto. According to what I heard over the Caltrain crew's walkie, the girl walked onto the tracks and laid down. It takes upwards of 30 seconds for those trains to stop and it was after 10 p.m. so it was dark out and they probably couldn't have seen her walk up to the tracks. The conductor had to go out and visually confirm. Ugh.
We couldn't see anything from our car - no police lights or anything. While I'm grateful for that it made the whole situation seem oddly distant and surreal.
There were at least two jackass passengers - one got up when we overheard the crew communicating by walkie that someone had laid down on the tracks and the conductor was going out to verify. He immediately latched onto the nearest crew member and started badmouthing the victim, "Suicide is such a boring way to go, I mean..." etc. Really wanted to punch him in the mouth. He was talking loudly and nothing had been confirmed yet so he was just adding to the growing sense of "WTF" on the train. Fran went to the bathroom and said a guy in one of the cars was complaining about his first amendment rights to de-board the train. I almost wish they would have pushed him out. We weren't at one of the stops and it was dark so he could have fallen, broken his leg, and then stumbled onto the tracks of an oncoming train. That would have been satisfying for the rest of us. Plus I don't remember where the First Amendment gives anyone the right to be a jackass during a crime scene investigation.
We couldn't see anything from our car - no police lights or anything. While I'm grateful for that it made the whole situation seem oddly distant and surreal.
There were at least two jackass passengers - one got up when we overheard the crew communicating by walkie that someone had laid down on the tracks and the conductor was going out to verify. He immediately latched onto the nearest crew member and started badmouthing the victim, "Suicide is such a boring way to go, I mean..." etc. Really wanted to punch him in the mouth. He was talking loudly and nothing had been confirmed yet so he was just adding to the growing sense of "WTF" on the train. Fran went to the bathroom and said a guy in one of the cars was complaining about his first amendment rights to de-board the train. I almost wish they would have pushed him out. We weren't at one of the stops and it was dark so he could have fallen, broken his leg, and then stumbled onto the tracks of an oncoming train. That would have been satisfying for the rest of us. Plus I don't remember where the First Amendment gives anyone the right to be a jackass during a crime scene investigation.