Police negligence reached new heights in 2022, when a pair of Colorado policemen abandoned a suspect to be struck by an oncoming train.
The odds were insurmountably stacked against Coloradan Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, but she somehow survived the September 2022 incident. Rios-Gonzalez was pulled over by a set of officers from a pair of Weld County police departments, after they received reports of a driver menacing other people with a gun, and footage of her near-death are spreading like wildfire on TikTok.
When Rios-Gonzalez was pulled over, the officers ignored several indicators of train tracks and parked their vehicle directly over the tracks. When they officially arrested the then-20-year-old suspect, they placed her in the back of the poorly-parked vehicle, only to moments later abandon her to a rushing train.
Video footage from the second police car’s dashcam, along with bodycam footage, shows the moment the train strikes the vehicle with Rios-Gonzalez still handcuffed in the back. She was reportedly aware of the oncoming train, and did everything in her power to flee the vehicle, but was ultimately still inside when the train struck.
Her survival is a miracle, but the unfathomable police negligence that put her in that position is, unfortunately, becoming a trend in America. Our police routinely make mistakes of life-ending proportions, and far too often they walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist.
Thankfully, while the punishments handed down to the officers were, in fact, far too gentle for the terrible decision making that could have ended a young woman’s life, Rios-Gonzalez wasn’t left out to dry. She suffered numerous serious injuries as a result of officer Jordan Steinke and police Sergeant Pablo Vazquez, including a traumatic brain injury, several broken ribs, a broken leg, and a broken back.
The officers, who were not handcuffed and helpless in the back of a vehicle, fled the oncoming train and suffered no injuries. Both were fired in the time between the incident and the settlement that earned Rios-Gonzalez $8.5 million, but — while the high sum is certainly warranted — no amount of money can heal Rios-Gonzalez of her serious injuries, or of the trauma she endured.
Both officers were likewise punished by the courts, but neither faced serious consequences for their rampant negligence. Both officers were ultimately fired from their positions, and both faced lukewarm punishments like probation and community service, but they feel inadeuqate in the face of such mind-boggling negligence.
That was certainly the opinion of TikTok, when it set sights on the video. Viewers were absolutely baffled to learn not only of Rios-Gonzalez’s survival, but also of the utter idiocy that landed her on the tracks in the first place. Who in their right mind parks a vehicle on a train track? And, more importantly, who then fails to move that vehicle when placing an entirely helpless person in the back?
Former officers Steinke and Vazquez, that’s who. Not only did they park their vehicle on the train tracks — something that is infuriatingly illegal in all instances other than emergencies and police stops — but they neglected to pay enough attention to realize a train was incoming until it was too late. They very well could have had a death on their hands, and it’s a miracle of mountainous proportions that Rios-Gonzalez survived.
