General News 4 Stabbed on Amtrak train in Niles; suspect in custody

This is the train I take every time I head home for a weekend/the holidays, the Blue Water, and depending on which conductor it was, I may have ridden with him. Scary thought. I'll be on that train 6 days from now.

 

While the incident is very unfortunate, it could have been prevented by banning knives and grape Faygo.

Is there any sort of security you have to go through to get on a train? I would think any mass transit would have at least metal detectors. Forgive my ignorance on this as the only way to commute where I live and have lived is by car or plane.

 

Nope, and Amtrak's security is random bag checks at stations where the Amtrak Police maintain a presence. Other than that, it's just random ID checks when they take your tickets onboard. On that particular train, the Blue Water, I've never been carded. When I had to take the Wolverine to Ann Arbor once, they checked your ID before you even got on the train.

With Amtrak, their security system is based on the whole "If You See Something, Say Something" mentality. It clearly failed here.

 

Wow. Thanks for clearing that up. Stuffing so many folks into a confined space with so few precautions seems like a recipe for disaster.

 

From Amtrak's passenger timetable:

"Amtrak uses a range of behind-the-scenes and front-line security measures to improve passenger rail security, some of which are conducted on an unpredictable or random basis. These include uniformed police officers and K-9 units in stations and on trains, Mobile Security Teams, checked baggage screening, on board screening, security cameras and deployment of state-of-the-art security technology.

Randomly selected passenger baggage, handbags, backpacks, and other personal items may be screened or inspected. The inspection will be completed as quickly as possible-usually in less than a minute-in a manner designed to respect passengers' privacy as much as possible. Passengers who decline to consent to security procedures will be denied access to trains and will be offered a refund.

Passengers 18 and over may be randomly asked by conductors to produce acceptable identification, even if they have previously done so when purchasing tickets. This is based on the passenger's ticket number.

 

Yikes! I was thinking of taking Amtrak to go visit some people and now this will be in the back of my mind when I do decide to ride it :S.

I feel sorry for those four people :/

 

So a person or a group of people could theoretically get on with AK's or even explosives in their luggage? If they get caught in a random inspection, they could just refuse and get a refund?