Brea Detective Killed by Train

A Brea police detective was killed by a freight train Wednesday while searching for a baseball bat believed to have been discarded near the railroad tracks after an attack, authorities said.

As another officer waved his arms and shouted a warning, Terry Lee Fincher, a 16-year department veteran, apparently took a step away from the approaching train, police said. But the 48-year-old detective was sucked into the side of the locomotive by the pressure of the passing train, which was moving downhill about 50 mph, Brea police investigator Bill Hudson said. Fincher was hurled down an embankment, where he was pronounced dead.

“It’s such a shame that he was killed over a baseball bat,” said Hudson, who had worked closely with Fincher.

Fincher was a decorated Vietnam veteran, the father of two children and two stepchildren. He had handled many of the department’s most high-profile cases, including the recent arrest of a 14-year-old Yorba Linda boy accused of shooting his mother to death.

“When you lose someone like Terry, it’s like you’re losing one of your own,” said Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan McNerney. “People like him are hard to replace. I don’t know where we are going to get another Terry.”

The accident occurred about 8:30 a.m. when Fincher and several other officers were searching the area near Esperanza Road and Hickory Drive. Hours earlier, police had arrested four young men on suspicion of following a couple from a bar and beating them with a bat near some railroad tracks.

The detective had been combing a rocky area near the tracks with his back to the oncoming train, police said.

The train was just rounding a turn, and the view was partly obscured, said Mike Martin, spokesman for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Co.

The train’s crew spotted the detective walking on the tracks when the train was about a third of a mile away, Martin said. By the time crew members hit the brakes, they were about a sixth of a mile away, he said.

“There’s not a lot of time to react when you’re traveling at around 75 feet per second,” Martin said.

Fincher stepped back when the conductor blew the horn and flashed the lights, Martin and police said. Although he stepped away, Fincher was pulled into the train by what engineers call the Bernoulli principle, the same phenomenon that causes a piece of paper thrown out of a fast-moving car to fly back toward the vehicle.

The train, with two engines pulling 19 cars, originated from Kansas City and was heading to Los Angeles. Because it was heading downhill, the train might have been less noisy than usual, Martin said.

“It’s just unbelievably sad,” Yorba Linda City Councilwoman Barbara Kiley said amid tears. “It’s a great loss for his family, the Police Department and the city of Yorba Linda.”

Fincher was the second Brea officer to die in the line of duty in the department’s 81-year history.

During a one-year stint with the Air Force in Vietnam, Fincher served as chief mechanic of an F-4 squadron. He worked as a reserve officer before joining the Brea police force in 1980 and had received numerous awards, including the department’s medal of honor, officer of the year and a commendation from the state attorney general’s office.

Fincher is survived by his wife, Brenda; children Edie, 23, of Texas, and Erik, 25; and stepchildren Melissa Scott, 16, and Nathan Scott, 20. He also has a 2-year-old grandson.