Man Struck and Killed by Metro Train in Highland Park

LOS ANGELES, CA – A man was struck and killed by a southbound Metro A Line train in Highland Park early Thursday, and the Los Angeles Police Department is investigating.

Metro reported that the train made contact with a person on the tracks south of the Southwest Museum Station at about 4:45 a.m. Sept. 3. The location was given as the 4600 block of Marmion Way. Los Angeles Fire Department personnel responded and pronounced the person dead at the scene.

The victim was a man in his 60s, according to the LAPD’s traffic division. His identity has not been released, and investigators have not said how he came to be on the tracks. A police spokesperson was unable to provide further details Thursday morning.

Video from the scene showed a white canopy set up near the tracks with a stopped train a short distance away. Metro told riders to expect delays from what it described as a train-person incident and turned trains back at the Southwest Museum and Heritage Square stations. The agency arranged a bus bridge between Heritage Square and Highland Park while investigators worked. Metro also extended sympathies to the man’s family and credited the Fire Department for a fast response.

Metro Line Los Angeles Statistics

The A Line runs 57.6 miles between Pomona and Downtown Long Beach and serves 48 stations, according to Metro, making it the longest modern light rail line in the world. North of Union Station the route follows a rail right of way first built in the 1880s. Through Highland Park and Mount Washington, trains run at grade, and the Southwest Museum Station sits at street level near Marmion Way.

Trespasser- and suicide-related events accounted for half of all fatalities reported to the National Transit Database in calendar year 2024, the Federal Transit Administration found. Comparing 2016 with 2024, the agency counted a 71 percent rise in major events of that type. Fatalities from those events rose 70 percent over the same period and injuries rose 65 percent.

The FTA responded in November 2025 with Safety Advisory 25-1. The advisory recommends that state safety oversight agencies direct rail transit operators to identify right-of-way hazards, assess the risk and track whether their fixes work. California leads the country in rail trespass casualties, with 307 recorded in 2024 including 182 deaths, according to Federal Railroad Administration figures compiled by California Operation Lifesaver.

How California Law Treats a Fatal Transit Strike

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is a public entity, which changes both the deadlines and the legal theories available to a family. Under Government Code section 911.2, a written claim for death or personal injury must be presented to the agency within six months of the date the claim accrues. Filing a lawsuit before that step is complete is generally barred.

Government Code section 815.2 makes a public entity liable for injury proximately caused by an employee acting within the scope of employment. That reaches operator conduct such as speed, horn use and braking. Government Code section 835 covers a dangerous condition of public property, and it requires proof that the condition created a foreseeable risk of the kind of harm that occurred. A plaintiff must also show that an employee created the condition or that the agency had actual or constructive notice of it under section 835.2. Fencing, sight lines, lighting and pedestrian crossing design are the kinds of features examined under that section.

Section 830.5 provides that the occurrence of an injury is not by itself evidence that public property was in a dangerous condition. Section 835.4 gives a public entity a defense if the action it took, or its decision not to act, was reasonable when weighed against the cost of alternatives.

A person’s own conduct on the tracks does not automatically end a claim. California follows pure comparative fault under Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975), so a decedent’s share of responsibility reduces a recovery rather than eliminating it. Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 sets out which relatives may bring a wrongful death action, and section 377.61 governs the damages available to them. Section 377.30 preserves the claim the decedent could have pursued had he survived.

Onboard and platform video, event recorder data, signal maintenance records and operator statements are usually held by the agency itself. Preservation demands generally travel with the claim, which is one reason the six-month window under section 911.2 carries so much practical weight.