THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 13, 1995 TAG: 9510130001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
Militia terrorism? Or murderous idiocy?
Wisely, law-enforcement authorities aren't jumping to conclusions about the derailment in Arizona Monday of an Amtrak passenger train, a wreck that killed one crewman and injured scores of passengers and has been attributed to sabotage.
Letters left at the scene - ``gibberish'' containing references to Waco, Ruby Ridge and the federal agencies involved in those violent incidents - confirm the deliberateness of the act.
The motive, however, is still unclear. The act also indicates a certain amount of knowledge and skill concerning trains. A disgruntled railroad employee could well have thrown the train off the track, then concocted the ``Sons of Gestapo'' signature as a ruse to throw investigators off his track.
Federal authorities' ability to construct the road to arrest from even the smallest bits of evidence have amazed us before. Thousands offered in reward money for tips should help. Railroads have stepped up track inspection, and unions their calls for more inspectors.
But with 140,000 miles of track, much of it through unpopulated areas, constant inspection would be prohibitively expensive, and anything less leaves trains vulnerable to derailment by terrorists, a train buff testing his own skills (that happened right up the road in Newport News in 1992) or a couple of teenagers on a lark (that happened in Florida in 1993). Perhaps improved, tamper-proof technology can keep other potential saboteurs at least from disconnecting the warning mechanisms built into track-monitoring systems.
For sure, the nation and state can demonstrate that the long arm of the law reaches from sabotage in the Arizona desert to a long stretch in prison. by CNB