Officer Pulls Autistic Child From Train Tracks

Risking his own life to save that of a little girl, Los Angeles Police Officer Thomas Case lunged onto railroad tracks in Chatsworth on Thursday and pulled a 10-year-old autistic child to safety seconds before a train would have hit her, authorities said.

An anonymous caller reported to police shortly before 8 p.m. that a girl standing on the tracks at 21600 Devonshire St. was not responding to passersby who were trying to coax her from the tracks. They assumed she was trying to commit suicide.

But the child could not comprehend the danger she was in, authorities said.

Case and two other officers from the LAPD’s Devonshire Division arrived at the scene within four minutes.

“Officers here at Devonshire work very hard. They’re not just doing the minimum to get by,” said Capt. Joseph Curreri, the division’s commanding officer.

The child had wandered out of her home blocks away unbeknownst to her mother, who had called police at almost the same time to report that her daughter was missing.