A train engineer from Los Angeles was arrested on Wednesday, April 1, for allegedly derailing a locomotive at high speed close to the docked hospital ship USNS Mercy, believing a conspiracy theory the US Government is covering up the ship’s true purpose, federal authorities announced.
The 44-year-old Eduardo Moreno (San Pedro citizen) is accused of ramming the locomotive through 2 barriers at the end of tracks Tuesday and coming to rest in a gravel lot ~250 yards from the US Navy ship, the Department of Justice revealed.
Nobody was injured. A California Highway Patrol officer who was nearby witnessed the crash and reported seeing “the train smash into a concrete barrier at the end of the track, smash into a steel barrier, smash into a chain-link fence, slide through a parking lot, slide across another lot filled with gravel, and smash into a second chain-link fence.”
When confronted, Eduardo Moreno allegedly told LA Port Police that he thought the USNS Mercy was "being used for something other than helping hospitals with the overflow of patients from hospitals dealing with coronavirus."
According to an arrest affidavit, Moreno said:
“You only get this chance once. The whole world is watching. I had to. People don’t know what’s going on here. Now they will.”
He allegedly told the FBI he did it to “wake people up”.
Moreno said he thought that the ship was suspicious and did not believe it was “what they say it’s for,” according to the feds. The man was charged with one count of train-wrecking.
For Coronavirus updates on cruise ship quarantines (infected passengers and crew) and top-pandemic countries (COVID-19 cases and deaths, daily updated statistics) see at CruiseMapper's Norovirus page.