Deputies Investigating Train’s Hitting of Protester Ask Why Navy Didn’t Wait

A sheriff’s official, investigating a military train accident that left an anti-war activist seriously injured, said Wednesday that the Naval Weapons Center here failed to provide deputies with an agreed-upon half-hour to move protesters who were blocking the tracks.

“We’re certainly asking the question, ‘Why they didn’t wait for us?’ ” said Capt. Russ Pitkin, head of the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department investigations division. “We had an agreement that they would call us and give us 30 minutes to respond.”

According to a department log, a Concord Naval Weapons Center official called the Sheriff’s Department at 11:33 a.m. Tuesday saying a train would leave the base at about noon, and requesting that deputies clear the tracks of demonstrators.

A deputy arrived at 11:57--”seconds, a minute, a very short time” after activist S. Brian Willson, 45, of San Rafael, was struck by the train, dragged 25 feet and had both his legs severed, Pitkin said in an interview. Willson wanted to block the train, which he believed was carrying munitions bound for the Nicaraguan contras.

Earlier on Tuesday, at about 10 a.m., deputies were there in time to clear the tracks of a small group of demonstrators, allowing a Navy train to cross the stretch of Contra Costa County-owned land that separates two sides of the weapons depot.

“Right now, we’re trying to determine if in fact a crime was committed. If we come to the conclusion that a crime occurred, we will turn it over to the district attorney,” Pitkin said. He declined to elaborate.

A train conductor and a brakeman were riding on a platform at the front of the engine when it hit Willson. At least one of the look-outs apparently was in radio contact with the engineer, Pitkin said. Naval officials estimated the train was going 5 to 7 m.p.h.

But Dean Metcalf, a free-lance journalist, concluded that the train was moving at an average speed of 18.5 m.p.h. He reached that conclusion after measuring the distance between the edge of the base and the point of impact--240 feet--then using a stopwatch while viewing a videotape of the incident.

Even as the Sheriff’s Department pressed on with its investigation, the Navy opened its own inquiry.

“Our side of the story is that this incident should not have happened, we’re sorry it happened, and an investigation is going on to find out why it happened,” said Dan Tikalsky, a civilian spokesman for the naval base.

Sheriff’s deputies had asked that train crew members submit to drug and alcohol tests after the accident. But Sheriff’s Lt. Telford Terry said the crew’s union refused to permit the testing.

Federal law would have required testing of the crew if the train had been privately owned. But the law apparently exempts Defense Department-owned trains, John Arlington, senior counsel to Rep. Thomas Luken, said in a phone interview. The Ohio Democrat heads a congressional subcommittee that has investigated drug testing of railway workers.

Meanwhile, Willson’s condition was upgraded Wednesday to serious. He had a fractured skull and both his legs were severed--one during more than eight hours of surgery Tuesday at John Muir Memorial Hospital in Walnut Creek, the other when he was struck.

“Brian is not only stable, but just before I left (the hospital) he started to speak,” Willson’s wife, Holly Rauen, said outside the base on Wednesday. “The first thing he said, ‘Well, I’m a real peace advocate now.’ Then he said, ‘I did it for Gabriel’ (his teen-age son).”

Rauen was joined by about 50 protesters at the scene of the accident Wednesday to insist that the train crew had ample warning and could have avoided the accident. Flowers, candles and pebbles spelling out “Peace” marked the spot on the tracks where Willson was hit. Among those in attendance were anti-war activist Daniel Ellsberg and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker.

And in Nicaragua, officials released a letter sent by President Daniel Ortega to Willson saying: “Dear brother, your sacrifice speaks loudly of the nobility of the American people, who in their majority oppose the use of violence.”

Willson, married only last week to Rauen, wrote to Capt. Lonnie Cagle, the base commander, on Aug. 21, informing him of his plans to begin a 40-day fast and remain on the tracks outside the Navy base as part of his effort to halt arms shipments to the contras.

“I want you to know in advance of this plan,” Willson wrote. “If not incarcerated, deceased or otherwise disabled, I am committed, as the spirit moves me, to be physically on the tracks for part of each of the 40 days.”

Willson, a Vietnam War veteran active in veterans groups, had been involved in the summer-long protest at the weapons station. Last year, he participated in a 47-day fast in Washington.

“We were willing to die if it meant saving lives, but we were not looking to die. We were involved in the clearest nonviolent action of our lives in an attempt to be part of a resurrection of spirit in our own culture,” he said in an article he wrote for the Santa Cruz Sun last week.