California IN BRIEF : OAKLAND : Engineer Suspended After Fatal Accident

The operator of a Bay Area Rapid Transit train involved in an accident that killed a 5-year-old boy could face disciplinary action because he sought counseling from a priest before submitting to a drug test. Veteran train operator Richard Ballesteros was suspended without pay despite a preliminary investigation that appeared to exonerate him from any questionable behavior, BART spokesman Mike Healy said. Ballesteros was driving a train Oct. 22 when Timothy Fitzsimmons of Hayward climbed through a hole in the fence that separated his elementary school from the tracks. Ballesteros hit the train’s emergency stop button immediately, blew the horn and yelled a warning out the cab window, but the train failed to stop in time to save the boy, the BART report showed. But when a supervisor ordered him to submit to a drug test, Ballesteros said he wanted to seek counseling from his parish priest and left. Ballesteros was suspended the next day.