Teenager found dead in desert after train burglary

By ABBY SEWELL - Staff Writer
Victorville Daily Press



Union Pacific train on the Cima grade between Kelso and Cima in the Mojave National Preserve.

MOJAVE NATIONAL PRESERVE — Railroad police and park rangers found a 17-year-old boy dead in the desert after arresting several suspects in a train burglary in the Kelso-Cima area Saturday night.

Union Pacific Railroad police and U.S. National Park Rangers found the body of Omar Antonio Gonzalez Barajas of Paramount at about 8:30 p.m., according to a report from the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner Department.

Railroad police were called out to a burglary at a train car sitting on a siding in the Mojave National Preserve between Kelso and Cima at about 2 p.m. Saturday, said Union Pacific spokeswoman Zoe Richmond. A railroad track inspector called police after seeing several men taking television sets out of a train car while the train was at a standstill waiting for another locomotive to pass.

Officers arrested two suspects almost immediately and arrested two more suspects later in the evening, after an extensive search of the area, Richmond said. Dave Ashe, chief ranger for the National Park Service at the Mojave National Preserve, said the two suspects arrested later in the day were apparently waiting for a driver to pick them up at a pre-planned location. The men told officers that Gonzalez Barajas, who was with them, had gotten sick and passed out under a tree, Ashe said.

After a 45-minute search of the area, officers found Gonzalez Barajas, who was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the coroner’s report.

An autopsy has not yet been conducted to determine the cause of death, coroner’s spokeswoman Sandy Fatland said. Ashe said his rangers’ initial assessment was that the death was heat- or dehydration-related, possibly combined with a reaction to a wild melon that the teenager had eaten.

Richmond said that train burglaries, which are both difficult and dangerous, are not a widespread problem for Union Pacific.

“Situations like this are pretty rare,” she said. “It seems a little bit old-fashioned, sticking up a train ... It’s unfortunate that someone had to die in the situation.”

Ashe, however, said that in his nine months working in the Mojave National Preserve, two trains had been burglarized in the preserve, and he had heard of several more being targeted in other parts of the county. Typically, burglars stake out mountain pass areas where they know that trains will be traveling slowly, or sidings where they will stop to allow other trains to pass, he said.

“This is the first fatality that I’m aware of, but as far as trains being hit, the railroads are shelling out millions and millions of dollars every year,” he said.

The Union Pacific police, U.S. National Park Ranger Service and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department are investigating the death.