A teenager from Nebraska is facing two felony charges amid accusations that they purposefully caused a train to derail. The teen, who has not been named by authorities, is accused of tampering with train tracks and causing a crash so that they could film it and post the footage online.
A BNSF Railway locomotive crashed on April 21 after a misaligned switch caused it to jump tracks in Bennet, Nebraska, reports NBC News. In the crash, the train and its cars remained upright, but collided with a stationary coal truck causing an estimated $350,000 worth of damage.
Now, a teenager who was on site when the crash occurred is facing accusations that they caused the train crash in order to post footage of the devastation online. As NBC News explains:
An investigator with BNSF Railway said in court documents that the teenager alerted authorities to the derailment and asked the investigator who arrived what caused the crash.
He is accused of tampering with a rail and causing two locomotives and five loaded BNSF cars to jump the rails in Bennet on April 21.
While the railcars remained upright, one crashed into an empty coal car, causing $350,000 in damage, an investigator for the rail company said in court records.
In the days following the crash, footage of the incident appeared online posted by the ZUnit06 YouTube channel, which has been linked to the teen in question. What’s more, when authorities arrived on the scene of the crash, they uncovered a tripod that had been set up at the crash site just four minutes before the train came steaming through.
Police confiscated the teen’s cell phone and the video camera footage recorded by BNSF Railway, reports the Metro. The teen revealed to investigators that they have a working knowledge of rail switches, which investigators say were tampered with to cause the crash. As Metro adds:
At the scene, a 17-year-old boy showed up and asked about the derailment and said he had recorded the crash on his mobile phone, according to the affidavit.
When authorities said they did not know the cause of the derailment, the boy said, ‘Obviously a switch was flipped the wrong way,’ stated court records obtained by KOLN.
Now, the teen is facing charges of criminal mischief, which could lead to a $5,000 fine. However, Lancaster County attorneys are filing a motion that could see the teen’s case transfer to an adult court, which could carry much harsher penalties.
Whether caused by nefarious parties or not, train derailments are becoming all too common here in America. Last week, a garage was hit by a runaway train for the second time, and derailed trains have also been captured plowing through towns across America.