Police in Colorado released body cam and dashboard footage of a train hitting a patrol car — all while a woman was detained inside the vehicle.
“Oh, shit!” a female officer said as the train approached on the night of Sept. 16.
After the crash, a male officer asked her if a woman they detained was in the vehicle. That woman was later identified as Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, 20, of Greeley.
“Oh my God, yes she was!” said the female officer.
“Was she in there?” said a male officer, apparently the same as before. “Was she in there?
“She was in there!” said the female officer.
“Oh, fuck,” the male officer said. “Oh, fuck.”
The officer called in the crash, saying his car was just hit by the train.
That would apparently make him the Platteville Police Officer who pulled over Rios-Gonzalez while investigating an alleged road rage incident involving a firearm that happened in Fort Lupton, Colorado. The female police officer would be one of the two Fort Lupton officers who arrived at the scene.
“The driver of the vehicle pulled to a stop just past the railroad tracks, with the patrol officer behind the car on the tracks,” said the Colorado Bureau of Investigation last week. The agency is investigating the train crash. “Two Ft. Lupton officers arrived on the scene and the team conducted a high-risk traffic stop and detained a lone female occupant (age 20, Greeley) placing her in the back of the Platteville patrol car detained on suspicion of felony menacing. While the officers cleared the suspect vehicle as part of the investigation, a train traveling northbound struck the PPD patrol car.”
“Why didn’t you move the vehicle off the tracks?” asked Ed Obayashi, a California sheriff deputy, in rhetorical fashion for KUSA’s follow-up report on the incident. “That’s going to be the biggest question.”
Authorities said Rios-Gonzalez sustained serious injuries. She is expected to survive, police said in a KDVR report from Monday.
Aaron Keller contributed to this report.
[Screenshot via Law&Crime Network]