Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) Metro Transit Police have opened their own investigation into the train derailment at the East Falls Church Station in July to determine whether criminal charges should be filed against Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority employees.
The derailment investigation started out as an administrative review by WMATA’s safety department, but new information from employee interviews and inspection reports prompted general manager Paul Wiedefeld to tell MTP to start its own investigation.
“The information uncovered to date raises potentially serious concerns, and we will take all actions necessary to get answers and hold people accountable,” Wiedefeld said in a press release.
The chair of WMATA’s board of directors Jack Evans told WMAL he doesn’t know specifics because this is an ongoing investigation.
“If you’re going to take this dramatic action, you must have some suspicion that there’s criminal negligence involved or even that some intentional actions were taken, and we don’t know that, but that’s a logical conclusion from what Paul has done now,” Evans said.
Falsifying reports is one example of something that may qualify as a criminal action according to Evans.
Two former assistant U.S. Attorneys are helping with the investigation. Evans doesn’t know how long it could take but said if anyone’s prosecuted, that person should be fired.
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