Claim Is Filed in Train Deaths of 2 Toddlers

The family of two Upland toddlers who were struck and killed by a Metrolink train as they played on the railroad tracks has filed a $30-million claim with the transportation authority, alleging that it is responsible for the deaths.

Appearing Wednesday at a news conference held in a Mid-Wilshire law office, the mother, Jaqueline Robles, and Fernando Soto, the father of one of the dead girls, said the claim is a way to call attention to the problem and to ensure that Metrolink takes action to prevent other deaths.

“We’re not doing this for the money,” said Soto, who at the time of the accident was in jail on suspicion of beating Robles. “This is the only way anybody gets attention.”

Metrolink built a fence in the area only after the children were killed, said the family’s attorney, Arden B. Silverman. But the agency had been previously warned that children play on the tracks, Silverman claimed.

In all, 14 people have died in accidents involving Metrolink trains this year.

“They did nothing, absolutely nothing to take precautionary measures to prevent this ever happening again,” Silverman said.

Peter Hidalgo, a spokesman for Metrolink, said the agency had not received the claim, which is a precursor to a civil suit, and could not comment on the case. But the area where the accident occurred is not considered a “hot spot,” an area identified by residents or engineers as dangerous because of children playing on the tracks.

“We to this day have not received any complaints from residents in that area,” Hidalgo said.

Three-year-old Alexes Elaine Robles and 22-month-old Deziree Soto were killed the morning of Oct. 21 while their mother slept in their second-floor apartment about 100 yards from the tracks. Robles, who is also the mother of an infant son, said she had fed the children breakfast and then fell asleep watching television.

Hours after the children were killed, Upland police arrested Robles on suspicion of felony child endangerment. Two days later she was released after prosecutors determined that they needed more time to review the case.

The arrest sparked a public outcry against the Upland Police Department and an outpouring of sympathy toward Robles. Friends and others argued that the grieving mother should not have been arrested.

Last Thursday prosecutors announced that they would not file charges against Robles.

Richard Maxwell, chief deputy in the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office, said Robles had tested positive for methamphetamine use, but experts could not determine when she took the drugs and how they might have influenced her actions.

After her release, Robles acknowledged that a young man had been asleep in her apartment when the children wandered out. But Wednesday she denied using drugs and denied that a man had been with her that morning or the previous night.

Speaking in a soft voice, her hand resting on top of Soto’s, Robles answered reporters’ questions about her own responsibility in the death of her children.

“Yes,” she said. “I feel like I have some responsibility for it. I do blame myself for falling back asleep.”

While Robles accepts responsibility in a “moral or ethical sense,” in a legal sense she is not responsible for the deaths, Silverman later said. “To blame the parent, as we can predict Metrolink will try to do, is really again an attempt . . . to deflect their own misconduct,” he said.

Hidalgo said it is naive to think that fencing is the absolute solution to preventing railroad deaths. In the majority of train deaths this year, fencing would not have made a difference, he said. It is part of a larger solution that includes education. “Nothing will help more than personal, individual and parental responsibility,” he said.