Police Left Car On Train Tracks
Lourdes Horace
Fort Lupton police officer Jordan Steinke was charged with attempted reckless manslaughter, a felony, and two misdemeanors -- reckless endangerment and third-degree assault -- in connection with the September 2022 incident, which left the woman severely injured.
Judge Timothy Kerns found Steinke not guilty of attempted reckless manslaughter, saying the court did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer \"knowingly intended to harm\" Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, the victim. But Kerns said Steinke did disregard \"what she consciously observed,\" citing the presence of railroad tracks and signs on the highway, in explaining his guilty verdict in the misdemeanors.
Steinke wept in court as the judge explained his verdict. Her sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 15. Her attorney requested an immediate sentencing on her behalf, though prosecutors said Rios-Gonzalez, who observed the verdict remotely, wanted to attend the sentencing in person.
Steinke and a Platteville police officer were investigating a road rage incident when they pulled over Rios-Gonzalez on Sept. 16, 2022. Steinke placed Rios-Gonzalez handcuffed in the back of the Platteville police cruiser, which was parked on train tracks. A short time later, a freight train plowed into the vehicle. The horrifying collision was captured by police body and dash cameras, with the footage later released by the Platteville, Colorado, Police Department.
\"At the time she elected to place Yareni Rios-Gonzalez in the Platteville patrol car parked on the railroad tracks instead of her own patrol unit that was safely parked to the west of the railroad tracks,\" Weld County Deputy District Attorney Lacy Vells said in court this week.
\"Officer Steinke was not trying to harm Miss Rios-Gonzalez,\" defense attorney Mallory Revel said in closing arguments on Thursday. \"To the contrary, this accident has haunted officer Steinke every single day since it occurred. It was a horrific accident.\"
Steinke took the stand on Tuesday, telling the court that she saw the railroad tracks but did not \"perceive\" the fact that the location was a railroad crossing. She said she did not see any reflective signs or gates indicating a railroad crossing at the time of the incident.
\"It was incredibly dark. I was miles outside of my jurisdiction,\" Steinke told the court. \"I was fairly certain that that particular stop was going to end in a gun fight. I never in a million years thought a train was going to come plowing through my scene.\"
She claimed she would not have put Rios-Gonzalez in the vehicle if she knew it was parked on train tracks and that she had \"trusted\" that the Platteville police officer's vehicle \"was in a secure location at that time.\"
Rios-Gonzalez is also suing police over her treatment. One of the attorneys representing her in the civil case, Chris Ponce, pushed back against the defense's argument ahead of the verdict and said the situation was not stressful.
\"Their defense is that this situation was so stressful to this officer that she simply did not notice that the train tracks were there,\" Ponce told Denver ABC affiliate KMGH. \"It's our opinion -- again, as we've stated in documents that we've filed publicly -- that is just not true. It's simply not true. The train tracks were obvious.\"
Rios-Gonzalez also faced charges stemming from the road rage incident prior to police pulling her over. She entered a no-contest plea earlier this month to misdemeanor menacing, according to The Association Press. She will avoid jail time if she follows the conditions of her deferred sentence, KMGH reported.
A Colorado police officer who put a handcuffed woman in a police vehicle parked on train tracks last year has been found guilty of reckless endangerment and assault. The detained woman was injured when a high-speed locomotive plowed into the car.
Officer Jordan Steinke, who worked for the Fort Lupton Police Department at the time of the crash, was found guilty Friday of the two misdemeanor charges but acquitted of a third charge, felony attempt to commit manslaughter. Another officer, Pablo Vazquez of the Platteville Police Department, hasn't yet entered a plea on reckless endangerment and traffic charges.
Steinke is the officer seen on previously released body camera footage who placed a handcuffed Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, 20 at the time, into the back of the squad car, which was parked on tracks north of Platteville, Colorado, the evening of Sept. 16, 2022. She was in the car for about two minutes before the northbound train slammed into the car.
Steinke is scheduled to be sentenced in September, according to court records. Her attorney, Mallory Revel, declined to comment when reached by USA TODAY on Saturday. USA TODAY has reached out to the Fort Lupton Police Department for comment.
Rios-Gonzalez had been arrested after police received a call about someone "menacing" with a handgun on the highway, police said at the time. She later pleaded no contest to misdemeanor menacing, her attorney said. Video also shows the officers search Rios-Gonzalez's truck, which had been parked ahead of the tracks.
"Stay back!" one officer yelled, possibly to other police at the scene, just before the impact. An officer can be seen quickly retreating from the parked cruiser before it was hit. In another clip, officers seemed not to immediately realize Rios-Gonzalez was in the police car when it was hit. A male officer asked a female officer seconds after the impact, "Was she in there?"
Steinke testified in court she wasn't aware of the train tracks when she put Rios-Gonzalez in the car, and didn't know the other officer's car was parked on the tracks, though the tracks and railroad crossing signs can be seen in the footage.
Steinke said she was focused on the suspect and believed the traffic stop would lead to gunfire. She said she placed Rios-Gonzalez in the car because it was the nearest place to keep her secure and was standard practice.
Rios-Gonzalez will be recovering from her injuries for the rest of her life, Ponce said. When the verdict against Steinke was handed down, Rios-Gonzalez was at one of the many medical appointments she is "inundated" with on a regular basis, he said.
"Ms. Rios respects the verdict in this case against Ms. Steinke and believes that justice was done," Ponce told USA TODAY on Saturday. "It is unacceptable for anyone in law enforcement to act as reckless and incompetent as these officers did."
Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, 20, of Greeley suffered multiple broken bones and a head injury when a Union Pacific train smashed into the Platteville Police Department patrol vehicle around 7:30 p.m. Sept. 16, on railroad tracks near U.S. 85 and Weld 38.
Police had pulled her over after receiving reports of an earlier road rage incident. Rios-Gonzalez was charged with one count of felony menacing for allegedly pointing a gun at someone, according to the news release.
Rios-Gonzalez was pulled over just past railroad tracks on Weld 38, but the Platteville officer who was pursuing her parked his SUV on the tracks. Two Fort Lupton officers arrived to assist, and after Rios-Gonzalez surrendered, they handcuffed her and put her in the back of the patrol SUV. But none of the officers moved the SUV off the track.
Rios-Gonzalez, who suffered a head injury, a back injury and nine broken ribs, sternum and arm, has retained an attorney in anticipation of filing a civil lawsuit against the police. She was released from the hospital after a 12-day stay.
A former Colorado police sergeant pleaded guilty to one count of reckless endangerment in a case related to him parking his car on railroad tracks before a collision with a train. Another officer put a handcuffed woman named Yareni Rios-Gonzalez inside. She was seriously injured when a train struck the car.
Former Platteville Police Sgt. Pablo Vazquez entered the plea deal Tuesday, agreeing to 12 months of an unsupervised deferred judgment and sentence. While Vazquez was fired by the Platteville Police Department earlier this year, his pleading to a second-degree misdemeanor means he can keep his Colorado law enforcement certification and would be eligible to become a police officer in Colorado again.
But before that September 2022 incident in Platteville, Vazquez was called "incompetent" by fellow officers at a previous police job and recommended for a demotion. But that doesn't appear to have happened.
Rios-Gonzalez suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as numerous broken ribs, a broken leg and a broken back in the crash and is suing the two former officers and the departments they worked at in civil court. That case is still ongoing.
FILE - This screen grab from dash camera video provided by the Fort Lupton Police Department shows a freight train barreling toward a parked police car with a suspect inside, Sept. 16, 2022, in Fort Lupton, Colo. A former Fort Lupton Police officer, Jordan Steinke, was sentenced to 30 months on supervised probation on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, for placing the handcuffed suspect in the car on the tracks. The collision seriously injured 21-year-old Yareni Rios-Gonzalez. The date/time stamp shown on the video is incorrect. (Fort Lupton Police Department via AP, File)
FILE - This screen grab from dash camera video provided by the Fort Lupton Police Department shows a freight train hitting a parked police car with a suspect inside, Sept. 16, 2022, in Fort Lupton, Colo. A former Fort Lupton Police Officer, Jordan Steinke, was sentenced to 30 months on supervised probation on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, for placing the handcuffed suspect in the car on the tracks. The collision seriously injured 21-year-old Yareni Rios-Gonzalez. The date/time stamp shown on the video is incorrect. (Fort Lupton Police Department via AP, File)
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