Judge grants defense access to video of fatal Oxnard train crash

A judge on Thursday granted a motion giving access to video of a fatal 2015 Metrolink train crash to the defense team of the truck driver charged in the incident. 

Jose Alejandro Sanchez Ramirez, 57

Senior Deputy District Attorney Scott Hendrickson, who is prosecuting the case against Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez, filed the discovery motion because federal law prohibits footage from the Metrolink train from being released without a court order.

Defense attorney Chad Nichols, who was standing in for Sanchez-Ramirez’s attorney Ron Bamieh, did not object to the motion. 

Sanchez-Ramirez, 57, has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in the Feb. 24, 2015, train crash that killed Metrolink engineer Glenn William Steele.

The defendant, who was not in court Thursday, mistakenly drove his truck onto the railroad tracks near South Rice and Fifth Avenue in Oxnard, where the trailer the truck was towing got stuck on the rails.

He abandoned the truck before the train crashed into it at 5:44 a.m., derailing and flipping three of its five cars onto their sides. 

A judge also issued a protective order that prohibits the video from being released to anyone but Sanchez-Ramirez and his defense team, Hendrickson said. 

The prosecutor called the hearing “procedural,” since both sides are required to have the same evidence.

A total of 33 passengers and crew members were injured in the Oxnard crash, including 62-year old Steele. He died a week later at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board report, Sanchez-Ramirez was unfamiliar with the area as he lived in Yuma, Arizona, at the time of the incident. He was also “acutely fatigued” from being awake for more than 24 hours. 

In a previous court hearing, Bamieh said the intersection has been a problem area for motorists for some time and the city was well aware of it. 

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