Hundreds of Amtrak Passengers Affected After Reported Gunman on Train

An armed passenger aboard an Amtrak train outside Los Angeles was in custody early Saturday after a six-hour standoff with police ended when sheriff's deputies deployed tear gas.

Nearly 200 people were forced to evacuate the Pacific Surfliner and all Metrolink service through the Chatsworth Station was halted Friday night after authorities received a report of an armed man seen aboard Amtrak 790.

The man who barricaded himself in a rail car was arrested after tear gas was used, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Special Enforcement Bureau.

amtrak21
LASD Special Enforcement Bureau
A suspected gunman was in custody Saturday, Sept. 17. 2016, after Amtrak passengers reported seeing him on a train in Chatsworth.

At about 6:19 p.m. Friday, the Metrolink Operations Traffic Center received a call from a passenger on the Pacific Surfliner that a gunman was seen on board the train, according to Ramon Montenegro, spokesman for the L.A. Sheriff's Department's Transit Policing Division.

Deputies at the Chatsworth's station secured the train and evacuated passengers, with the exception of the suspected armed man who locked himself in a rail car, while the sheriff's department Special Enforcement Bureau and Amtrak police were dispatched to the scene, Montenegro said.

Amtrak spokesman Craig Schulz told City News Service all 187 passengers and five crew members aboard San Diego-bound Amtrak Train 790 "safely left the train." Buses were provided to take passengers to other train stations, Pacific Surfliner said in tweet.

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