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Early on Saturday morning, police arrested a man who had spent the previous eight hours or so barricaded in the bathroom of an Amtrak train in Chathsworth. Police say that the man, a 46-year-old from Oxnard named Darius Palmer, had a firearm with him, according to KTLA.
Police first received reports of a man with a gun aboard the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner train at 6:19 p.m. on Friday evening. The train stopped at the Chatsworth Metrolink station, at which point all 187 passengers and five crew members aboard were evacuated. Though police initially evacuated only those in the carriage where Palmer was, the entire train was evacuated after they discovered Palmer had locked himself inside a bathroom, according to KABC.
The initial report made to police noted that a man aboard the train had dropped a gun, and was acting either under the influence of a foreign substance, or was suffering from a mental illness.
UPDATE CHATSWORTH - Barricaded armed suspect on #AMTRAK train in custody after tear gas deployed. Area safe. pic.twitter.com/Tt2KjrRlRC
— SEB (@SEBLASD) September 17, 2016
"Someone reported that he dropped a gun—likely was then reported to the train folks—and that's when things escalated," said Allison Bird, a passenger, to KABC.
L.A. County Sheriff's Department negotiators worked for several hours to coax Palmer out of the bathroom. He exited the bathroom and was taken into custody around 2 a.m. No shots were fired, and Palmer will likely be booked by the Amtrak police department.
As for train service, the halt caused major delays on both Metrolink Ventura County Line and Amtrak Pacific Surfliner service. The Surfliner train was headed towards San Luis Obispo, and passengers from that train (as well as two more on Saturday) will be shifted to either buses or other trains.
