In 2022, a woman from Colorado got hurt really bad when a police car she was in got hit by a big train. She was in handcuffs at that time. Now, she’s been given $8.5 million to settle her case against the police.
Her name is Yareni Rios-Gonzalez. This happened in September 2022. The police had taken her because they thought she showed a gun during a road argument. She’s been healing at home, but it’s been tough. She got nine of her ribs broken, her arm broken, and her chest bone cracked. She also got hurt in her head and back, said her lawyer, Paul Wilkinson, on KUSA-TV.
There’s a video that shows how it all happened. You can see the train crashing into the police car. The car was parked right on the train tracks. The video from the police officers’ cameras shows them trying to get away as the train comes closer. They put Rios in the car while they were searching her own car. You can hear one officer saying, “Oh my God!” many times, and another saying, “Stay back!” The train was honking its horn before it hit.
Rios sued the police departments of Platteville and Fort Lupton, both in northern Colorado. She also sued some individual officers. Two of them got fired and charged because of what happened. The money she got will be paid by both towns using their insurance, their lawyers said.
Wilkinson, her lawyer, said this was a good outcome. He talked to the New York Post and said, “Considering she got hit by a train, she’s doing all right.” Rios is 22 years old and still has to deal with some physical and emotional pain, but she’s getting better.
