Public Turns Against Dead Girls’ Mother

She escaped formal prosecution, but now Jackie Robles is finding that the court of public opinion can deliver its own brand of justice.

It was a month ago today that Robles’ two daughters were struck and killed by a Metrolink train in Upland, after she fell asleep and the girls--Alexes Robles, 3, and Deziree Soto, 22 months--wandered from home.

Public reaction was swift and strong--generally in supportive sympathy for the 21-year-old mother and in critical outcry against the Upland police for briefly arresting her. People from miles around visited the scene of the tragedy, leaving flowers, poems, toys, candles and stuffed animals as a shrine to the girls.

But on Thursday there was a demonstration of another sort on those tracks.

At sunset, about 100 people gathered at the Upland Metrolink station, angrily decrying Robles for her failure to watch her two young girls.

“We’ve got to stop living in a society where we’re pointing fingers, and take responsibility for our own actions,” said Kristine MacDonald, an Upland mother who organized the event.

The group, mostly women and children, hoisted signs reading, “Being a neglectful mother does not give you the right to sue” and “Choo-choos don’t kill children, irresponsible mommies do.” The group accented its march with such rallying cries as “No fence, common sense” and “The kids would be alive if Jackie wasn’t high.”

Thursday’s rally was the second this week critical of Robles; on Monday, about a dozen family members of Metrolink engineers staged a similar protest in Los Angeles.

And the tone of calls and letters to police, newspapers and radio talk shows has turned decidedly negative. Even the father of her oldest child has been critical.

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The turning of the public tide of sympathy apparently has hinged on two developments: the disclosure by the San Bernardino district attorney’s office that Robles had been using methamphetamine, and her decision last week to sue Metrolink--claiming it bore the responsibility for her children’s death because the tracks that course alongside the working-class neighborhood were not protected against trespassers.

Prosecutors decided not to charge Robles with felony child endangerment, saying they could not conclude when Robles had used methamphetamine or whether the amount detected in her system was enough to affect her judgment Oct. 21.

But the fact that she had used drugs began a shift of public opinion, from sympathy to criticism.

Kevin Chaffee, editor of the editorial page of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Upland’s local newspaper, said the change has been reflected in the tone of letters to the editor. “Some of the people who were critical of the police for arresting her were now saying, ‘We’re not so sure anymore.’ ”

That wave of opinion swelled last week, after Robles and Fernando Soto, the father of the younger girl, announced their intention to sue Metrolink for $30 million.

“Since then,” Chaffee said, “we’ve had a flood of mail--and, uniformly, it’s been, ‘How dare they sue?’ ”

That turnaround is evident at the Upland Police Department, which initially was vilified by people critical of detectives for arresting Robles within hours of her children’s deaths.

Upland police recoiled at the anger, saying that if members of the public only knew what they knew, they would not be so hasty to pass judgment. At the time, Robles’ drug use had not been disclosed.

Upland Police Chief Martin Thouvenell said the public attitude is much different now. “We’re getting five to 10 letters a day, supporting what we did,” he said. “And I’m getting calls from people who apologized for reacting negatively toward us at the beginning, because they said they didn’t have all the facts.”

Criticism of Robles for filing the lawsuit has come too from Eddie Ortiz, the father of the older girl. He and Robles were not married, and he left the home before Alexes was born.

“I definitely felt sympathy for her when this happened. I spoke to her when she was in jail, and said that we had to suffer this together,” Ortiz said. But he said he would have argued against Robles filing the lawsuit. “I’m upset that she’s filed the lawsuit, because she admits being partially at fault.”

Robles’ attorney, Arden B. Silverman, said Thursday he was not surprised by how public reaction has shifted.

“I almost chuckle to myself over the public outcry,” he said. “It’s a pity that they’re dealing with this on such an emotional level and not on a legal level.

“From the ultimate perspective,” he said, “we have a slam-dunk winner of a case.”

He said that the turning public opinion against his client “is frustrating her and angering her. It’s easy for people to say, let bygones be bygones and let the tragedy pass--until it happens to you.”

He credited Robles for admitting that she accepted some of the responsibility for her children’s death. “For her to have suggested otherwise would have suggested she is a cold, calloused, calculated individual. She’s anything but that, and her honesty will help her.”

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The changing opinion against Robles is predictable, said Michael Josephson, an ethicist and commentator. “People react to partial information, and every time they get more information, there’s an opinion shift,” he said.

The lawsuit only added to the changing winds, he said. “It was one thing when she was seen as a victim, and even if she was complicitous, you could still sympathize for her.

“But when it looks like she’s trying to capitalize on their deaths by suing, and turning this into a situation where she could profit, her complicity takes on a new significance. People ask, ‘Wait a minute, you could have stopped this, and now you’re seeking millions of dollars?’ That rubs people the wrong way.”

One person whose opinion of Robles has never changed is San Bernardino County Dist. Atty. Dennis Stout. Although his office decided not to charge Robles with a crime, “I as a human being am outraged by what she did. I thought, from the very beginning, that her conduct was inexcusable.”

Robles will next be in court Dec. 1, at a Juvenile Court hearing to decide whether she should be allowed to regain custody of her infant son, Fernando Soto Jr., who was taken from her the day of the accident.