Amtrak shooting - Tucson AZ

[mdvle]

Earlier today there was a shooting onboard an Amtrak train stopped at Tucson Arizona, at this time reports are a DEA Agent and the gunman are dead,  2 other DEA Agents injured - no passengers or crew injured.

 

Virtual Railfan caught the incident train at the platform

 

 

 

CNN story:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/04/us/tucson-shooting-amtrak/index.html

 

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by mdvle
Fixed autocorrect errors

[HSB]

TUSCON, Arizona

[pH]

TUCSON, Arizona.

[Oldddudders]

Still the Wild West!

[Railpassion]

With over 12,000 deaths by shooting a year, the freedom to bear arms exacts a heavy price.

[Regularity]

This guy is American, so no poking our noses into American "internal" politics:

https://www.facebook.com/stevehofstetterTV/videos/506897307209493/

 

This seems to be a bit of a litmus test amongst some sections of the USA for patriotism. Not being a citizen of said country, I am not going to get involved in that, unless asked for my opinion as an outside observer/"critical friend".

[wombatofludham]

As a bit of a fan of Virtual Railfan I was actually watching this live when it happened.  During lockdown I discovered VR and the Tucson cams were a regular habit, where the Sunset Limiteds stop for a refuel by a truck parked on the platform, which takes about 50 minutes, during which time those on board wander around, have a smoke, wave at the webcam and generally have a break from the long journey.  As such, in a way it's become a familiar place despite me never having set foot on US soil, let alone Tuscon.  So when I heard loud gunshots close to the webcam about ten minutes into the refuelling stop, it was shocking, made all the more so by the fact I knew this was live, bar a few seconds delay.  The policeman with the drug-sniffer dog who ran towards the shooter, before having to run for cover behind the equipment shed, is a regular on the camera when the local police do random drug sweeps of the train during the lengthy stop.  I asked the chat community what they were doing when I first saw them, and was told they often sweep the train as it runs from California to New Orleans via some stops close to the Mexican border, and have witnessed the odd dope peddlar getting taken off the train after the dog had found something.  So, to see them getting shot at was like witnessing a familiar face getting shot at.

It really got to me when I saw elderly passengers being evacuated onto the low platform and trying to rush as best they could away from the gunfire.  In particular, after the situation had been contained, when two elderly and frail people were escorted from the very coach in which the gunfight had taken place, the woman virtually having to be carried she was so distraught, I wondered how they would cope with having presumably been trapped in the carriage by their frailty when, I assume, the other more able bodied were able to escape into the adjacent cars.

It's certainly not something you expect to see on what has been a fun to follow series of webcams and without wanting to get too political, makes me grateful we have some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.  Of course, it won't stop illegal weapon use, nor does it, but having seen live the trauma play out in Tucson with an increasing sense of horror, it is one of the few things I feel good about this country that we don't have a widespread gun culture.