Youth Dies After Being Struck by Train

A 16-year-old Moorpark boy, who apparently was high on LSD, ran from police late Tuesday night, scaled an eight-foot-high fence, jumped onto railroad tracks and stared down an oncoming freight train until it ran over him.

Just after 11 p.m., an hour past curfew, a sheriff’s deputy had spotted a carload of teenagers pulling out of a Vons parking lot. He pulled them over on High and Walnut streets and immediately suspected the boys were using drugs, authorities said.

Calling for backup, the deputy ordered Drew Diederich and three other youths out of the car.

It’s unclear what made Drew run as two officers searched his friend’s car. It might have been because he already had a record for violating curfew. Or it might have been because he had been using LSD, according to his friends and his mother, and feared getting caught.

But police say Drew suddenly bolted and scaled a chain-link fence. Deputies, believing they could catch up to him later if necessary, stayed with the others, a 16-year-old and two 18-year-olds.

Minutes later, deputies searching the car heard a radio dispatch that a freight train had run over a pedestrian. Authorities, who had found no drugs in the car, let the other teenagers go with a warning and rushed to the tracks, where they discovered the victim was Drew. John Bromley, a spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad, said Drew had “walked onto the tracks, faced the train and made no attempt to move.”

Drew’s mother called the death a tragic result of drug use and pleaded for donations to the drug rehabilitation program her son attended.

“I want other kids to benefit from this,” Gretchen Diederich said. “This wasn’t the kid we knew. This wasn’t a depressed kid. This was our love. But if you’re on acid, where’s your brain?”

She last saw her son early Tuesday evening. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and promised to be home by the city’s 10 p.m. curfew for minors.

Diederich, a divorced mother of three, described Drew as upbeat, popular among his peers and well loved by his family.

But she doesn’t doubt the police account of what happened. She’s certain it was the drug that led Drew to the tracks, even though he tried to stay away from LSD, she said.

“Actually, he hated the stuff,” she said. “But you know how peer pressure is. You don’t want to look like a sissy. It’s hard.”

Diederich had enrolled in the Palmer Drug Abuse Program, which provides counseling and support groups for teens with substance abuse problems.

His mother said he was doing well and had a part-time job as a busboy for a local restaurant.

At the city’s continuation campus, Moorpark Community School, he “was a nice kid, a happy kid,” said teacher Mario Porto. “He enjoyed being here.”

Relatives said Drew talked about attending Moorpark College, and getting a technical degree as a mechanic.

And he continued with rehabilitation counseling, his mother said. But it’s difficult for a teenager to stay clean in a community where access to drugs is so easy, she said.

“His friends have told me, ‘There’s not a kid we know that hasn’t been on drugs,’ ” she said. “That’s how rampant it is.”

Diederich said she doesn’t “want any flowers, I don’t want any of that. I just want people to send money to [the Palmer Drug Abuse Program] . . . This is everybody’s son. The people down the street: this is your kid.

“All of us parents have a wonderful kid we don’t want to lose, but the peer pressure is so high. These kids need help. We have to get to them. We have to save them.”

She said she would get through her loss by remembering the years she was able to spend with her youngest.

“I know I was blessed,” Diederich said. “I had him for 16 years, so I was blessed.”

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Times staff writer Aaron Sanderford and Times Community News reporter Catherine Blake contributed to this story.