Thu, 27 Jan 2005 07:36:10 -0800 (PST)
Re: [Root_Cause_State_of_the_Practice] Train Wreck: What can rooticians learn from this one?
Sorry I forgot to copy over the references -but I had another thought.
“Later, police would find marks on the tires suggesting the Jeep had moved back and forth before the train hit. They concluded that Alvarez tried todrive forward over the tracks, but the car wouldn'tmove. So he tried to back up and failed. He wasstuck.”
The world is increasing asking these questions–witness Asia’s deadly Tsunami. So why don’t we charge god with the deaths of the 11 and the injuries of 180 people in California? Did he(She) actively keep the car on the tracts? Was god asleep at the switch? I believe there is no such thing as a coincidence.
Boy, would I like to ask the question to the universe-like in a court proceeding –did you (god) cause that train wreck -If so why- why do you cause so muchsuffering of the innocence if you truly love us, when we love you so much.
Are you(god)and us using Juan Manuel Alvarez as ascape-goat for our failure?
...and “god's work must truely be our own” -I keep hearing in my head....?
Thanks,
mike mulligan
Hinsdale, NH
'I'm Sorry. ... I Didn't Mean It.'
Juan Manuel Alvarez showed up at the front door bloody and holding a scissors blade. Blocks away, bodies lay inside mangled trains.
By Sam Quinones and Erica Williams, Times Staff Writers
Reyna Barcena invited Juan Manuel Alvarez to spaghetti dinner Tuesday night.
He showed up the next morning, covered in blood, mumbling: "I'm sorry. A lot of dead people. A lot of people's dead. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."
"I didn't know what he was talking about," Barcena said.
Alvarez was crouched on her doorstep in Atwater Village, several blocks north of where rescuers had begun pulling the dead and injured from the trains mangled in Wednesday's crash. He was stabbing himself and making apologies for the people who had died. As he spoke, blood came out his mouth.
"He had no strength," she said. "The little strength he had, he kept poking himself in the chest over the heart."
Alvarez, accused of killing 11 people and injuring more than 180 when he parked his Jeep Grand Cherokee in front of a Metrolink train, appeared Friday bandaged and shackled in court, where his arraignment was postponed. He has been under suicide watch at County-USC Medical Center since the crash.
Barcena said she met Alvarez about three weeks ago at a practice session of danza Azteca, a traditional form of Aztec Indian dance. Alvarez began dancing about five years ago with the Xipe Totec dance troupe, said Lazaro Arvizu, the group's director. Alvarez's estranged wife, Carmelita, also danced with the troupe.
"He was always dressed like an Indian, with the feathered headdress, the loincloth, the sandals with rattles and bells," said Sergio Lopez, manager of apartments on Walker Street in Bell, where the Alvarezes lived in 2000.
Alvarez danced earlier this month at St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Los Angeles.
In December, he was part of a procession for the Virgin of Guadalupe organized by East Los Angeles City College.
Barcena had heard Alvarez, 25, was a construction worker and thought she might hire him. Alvarez told her he had no money or a place to stay.
"I asked him, 'Why don't you have a place to live?' " Barcena recalled. "He said, 'My wife and I are separated. I got involved in drugs, cocaine.' "
Alvarez told her he had been in drug rehabilitation for six weeks, and said he doubted that his wife would take him back. In December, a judge issued a restraining order that kept Alvarez away from his wife, his stepdaughter and the couple's 3-year-old son.
Barcena told him that he needed to " 'prove to her and yourself that you can do it'…. He was very honest with me, and that's the reason why I liked him."
She offered to let him stay in a duplex she owned around the corner from her home in exchange for making some repairs.
In the days before the crash, Barcena drove by the duplex where Alvarez was staying and noticed that his Jeep was parked in the same spot.
"Three days without leaving. Not working. Not eating. He was depressed," she said. "If I would have known, I would have stayed with him. I would have held his hand. I would have prayed with him. I would have not left him alone. That's my remorse. But I didn't know."
Moans awakened Barcena on Wednesday morning and she found Alvarez on her doorstep, bleeding and calling her name.
At least one of his wrists was cut, Barcena said. Alvarez's torso was cut in a long slice from his chest to his navel. In his hand was a 4-inch scissors blade.
He didn't smell of alcohol, she said.
Alvarez asked to use the phone, Barcena said, and she ran inside to get her cordless phone. When she returned to the front door, Alvarez had dragged himself 40 feet to a parking lot and was on his back.
Barcena brought him the phone and Alvarez called a cousin, Beto.
"I heard him say: 'Tell Gloria and my children that I love them,' " she said, " 'that I didn't mean to hurt them.' "
Barcena took the phone and called 911.
"I'm 52 years old and I have seen a lot of children in this life," Barcena said. "I think he was just troubled. He was alone. He didn't mean to cause what he caused. He was trying to commit suicide and he kills innocent people. He didn't plan it. It just happened. Unfortunately, he didn't die."
As the paramedics drove Alvarez to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, Barcena went to check the duplex where he was staying. Below a broken kitchen window, Barcena found a Spanish-language Bible.
Barcena believes that Alvarez went to the duplex after the crash, Bible in hand. With his keys somewhere at the crash site, he broke into the duplex.
Inside, Alvarez left a sleeping bag, a blanket and a pillow, a black suitcase on rollers, a candle in a glass with a prayer to the Virgin of Guadalupe and a CD of Mexican ranchero duets.
He had the book "The First Book of the Aztecs," belonging to Garfield High School, which he attended briefly after transferring from Roosevelt High in the late 1990s.
He also had a an English-language Bible. It has a handwritten notation on one of the first pages: Matthew 5: 22-25 — passages that warn of God's judgment against those who lash out in anger.
It reads in part: "Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment."
Inside the Bible were photographs that appeared to be Alvarez in Aztec garb. Police later took a large serape drenched in paint thinner.
"That kid struggled the whole night with whether to commit suicide," Barcena said. "He believed in God. He had the Bible with him there. He had been reading it. My opinion is he was struggling not to kill himself."
Times staff writers Monte Morin, Christine Hanley and Richard Winton contributed to this report.
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