According to the Associated Press, two officers with the Platteville Police Department in Colorado have been hit with criminal charges after they left a suspect handcuffed in a cruiser parked on the railroad tracks that was then hit by a freight train.
"Two police officers involved in the arrest of a woman who was seriously injured when the parked patrol car she was in was hit by a freight train in Colorado have been charged," said the report. "Prosecutors also announced Monday that the woman, who was arrested after a report of an alleged road rage incident involving a gun before the September crash, was also charged with felony menacing."
"Prosecutors didn’t release details about what the officers are accused of doing," said the report. "One officer was charged with two felonies, including attempted manslaughter. The other was charged with reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, and parking where prohibited."
The victim of the alleged road rage incident, which is being investigated separately from the police misconduct, has spoken out to 9NEWS: “When I got to Fort Lupton, I noticed there was a car tailgating me really badly. And that’s when I tapped my breaks and there was a car ahead of me and I had to slow down. The car got behind me, pretty close to me."
The woman, Yareni Rios-Gonzalez, then allegedly produced a gun after the drivers pulled over.
Rios-Gonzalez's attorney disputes this version of events, saying that the other driver was the aggressor.
This comes amid a number of high-profile prosecutions of police misconduct. Earlier this year, Joshua Jaynes, the former Louisville Metro Police officer who submitted the falsified search warrant application that led to the fatal no-knock warrant against Breonna Taylor was charged with federal violations of civil rights law by the Justice Department.
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