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Officer Spree Moran DeSha When LAPD Officer Spree DeSha, 35, ended her work day on the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 12, 2008, she walked from LAPD's Parker Center at 150 N. Los Angeles Ave. to L.A.'s Union Station, less than a mile away. She boarded the 3:35 p.m. Metrolink Train No. 111 for the hour-long ride to Simi Valley, Calif., to the home she shared with her partner, LAPD motorcycle Officer Laura Gerritsen, about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
Following the practice for off-duty officers riding on public transportation, DeSha remained in uniform on her way home, to give her fellow passengers a feeling of safety and security, and to assist with any possible emergencies.
As she usually did, DeSha took her seat in the first row of the first passenger car on the train, to be more visible to the other passengers.
DeSha graduated from the LAPD Academy in August 2001, and worked in the West Valley, Wilshire and North Hollywood divisions. For most of her seven-year LAPD career, DeSha worked as a street cop on patrol, and later as a field training officer for new graduates of the police academy. She particularly enjoyed working undercover on narcotics assignments, and her success was recognized.
DeSha received 34 commendations on her personnel record, and was highly praised in her performance evaluations. DeSha was "a dedicated and energetic officer who goes out and enjoys getting the job done," one of her supervisors wrote in her evaluations.
DeSha worked out of the North Hollywood Community Police Station for three years before taking an administrative position at LAPD's Office of Operations in the Parker Center in downtown L.A. in early September 2008. In one of her first duties, she briefed LAPD officials on a new computerized tracking system to streamline the deployment of the department's nearly 10,000 officers.
"She was uncommonly thoughtful, very intelligent," said LAPD Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger, who ran the department's Office of Operations.
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Spree Moran DeSha was born Nov. 4, 1972, Tampa, Fla., the daughter of Allan Moran and Sha Shopf-Moran. From a young age, she considered two possible career paths -- professional dancer and police officer.
Although she took dance classes from an early age into young adulthood, she also "played cop" as a child, according to her parents. When the family went grocery shopping, young DeSha brought a plastic toy pistol and would patrol the aisles, looking for "criminals."
As a tall, athletic dancer, DeSha earned the nickname "Spree" in junior high school, graduated from a prestigious dance academy, and was awarded a scholarship to the Tremaine dance studio in North Hollywood, Calif. DeSha moved to Los Angeles to pursue a dance career but, according to her father, she found her calling with the LAPD, where she met Gerritsen.
"She was proud to wear the uniform," DeSha's father said. "It was her life."
In 2008, DeSha and Gerritsen has been together for about six years, and had been living at the home they purchased together in 2004 in Simi Valley, about 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
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Metrolink is the commuter rail system serving Southern California, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
On Sept. 12, 2008, Metrolink 111, with a locomotive pulling three passenger coaches, left Union Station in downtown Los Angeles at 3:35 p.m., with DeSha on board, heading west to its final destination of Moorpark in Ventura County, with stops in Glendale, Burbank, Van Nuys, Northridge, Chatsworth and Simi Valley.
Heading east on the same track was a Union Pacific Railroad freight train, with two locomotives pulling 17 freight cars.
Although the rail line has double tracks east of the Chatsworth station, and again into Simi Vally, a long section between the cities has only a single track. The three rail tunnels west of Chatsworth and east of Simi Vally, in the mountainous Santa Susana Pass, are only wide enough to accommodate a single track.
Signals on the tracks and train dispatchers are supposed to alert engineers whether it's safe to proceed on a single-track area.
The Union Pacific freight train had been given the right of way from Simi Valley to Chatsworth by the dispatcher, and a red stop signal was given to the Metrolink engineer.
Typically, a northbound train leaving the Chatsworth station and receiving a red stop signal would wait on the double-track section at the Chatsworth station until the oncoming train passed. The signal system was upgraded in the 1990s to support Metrolink commuter rail services, and had functioned without any incidents.
But the engineer of the Metrolink train failed to see the red stop signal that indicated it was not safe to proceed on the single-track section because of the approaching freight train, and continued north out of Chatsworth. The freight train had just come out of the tunnel under Topanga Canyon Boulevard.
The passenger train and the freight train, both traveling at about 40 miles per hour, approached each other on a sharp curve in Chatsworth, about 1.25 miles from the Chatsworth station, near the corner of Heather Lee Lane and Andora Avenue. The train crews didn't see each other until about four seconds before the head-on impact, at 4:22 p.m. The freight train engineer applied the emergency break about two seconds before impact, while the Metrolink engineer never applied the brakes, according to onboard computers.
An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) showed that the Metrolink engineer was likely occupied on his phone, exchanging text messages and ordering a roast beef sandwich from a restaurant at the end of the line in Moorpark, and didn't see the red stop signal. The Metrolink engineer had a reputation for exchanging text messages with train buffs while on duty, despite a Metrolink policy that cell phones could not even be turned on in locomotive control cabs. On the day of the crash, the engineer sent and received 57 text messages while on duty, including one he sent 22 seconds before the collision.
Pushed by the two locomotives of the freight train, the Metrolink locomotive telescoped into the first passenger car, derailed and caught on fire. The first passenger car also derailed. DeSha was sitting in the first row of the first car of the Metrolink train, which took the full force of the head-on collision. Her cause of death was blunt force trauma.
Both locomotives and the first 10 cars of the freight train also derailed, and diesel fuel from the freight train spilled, caught on fire and the fire was spreading.
Hundreds of emergency workers quickly arrived at the scene, primarily LAPD officers and an estimated 250 LAFD firefighters, for rescue and recovery, as well as search and rescue units. The first responders included DeSha's partner, Officer Gerritsen, who was initially unaware that DeSha was on the train since she had only recently taken the job at Parker Center and started riding the train home.
"She just started this job," Gerritsen said later.
"We went over there and a firefighter who used to be a neighbor of mine was there on scene and I hadn't seen her in the triage area, so I asked if there was any LAPD officers on the train," Gerritsen said.
"He mentioned to me he had seen a uniform with stripes on the sleeve but he couldn't tell if it was male or female, and I knew when he told me that, I knew that it was her deep down."
Gerritsen said she walked away from the scene because she didn't want to see DeSha's body removed from the train wreckage. "I didn't want to watch them take her out," Gerritson said. "I didn't want to remember her like that."
All six of the LAFD's air ambulances responded to the scene, as well as helicopters from the L.A. County Fire Department and the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. As firefighters were extinguishing the fire from the burning diesel fuel, police officers were entering the burning wreckage to administer first aid and rescue injured passengers. And as emergency responders rescued the injured, recovery operations tended to the victims.
Initial reports placed the death toll at 15, but a total of 25 people were killed in the collision, including the Metrolink engineer, and about 135 were injured -- 160 killed or injured out of 222 people on board the train. The victims ranged in age from 18 to 75. Ten were residents of Simi Valley. It was the deadliest accident in Metrolink's history, and the worst loss of life in a U.S. rail accident since 1993. It remains the deadliest rail accident in California history.
An NTSB investigation concluded that the cause of the crash was most likely the result of the Metrolink engineer's texting while on duty. The engineer had a history of exchanging text messages with railroad enthusiasts, and his focus on text messages was likely the cause of him missing the stop signal.
It was a dramatic, solemn and emotional moment when her fellow LAPD officers removed DeSha's body It was only after DeSha's body was placed in the ambulance did the work resume.
Since DeSha was in uniform when she died, she is considered by the LAPD to have died in the line of duty.
A funeral service for DeSha was held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. In addition to DeSha's family and friends, hundreds of uniformed officers attended the service.
A lectern at the front of the cathedral held DeSha's cap and badge -- which was bent nearly in half by the force of the collision.
LAPD Chief William Bratton noted that DeSha's badge was "bent, but not broken -- a perfect reflection of Spree." Bratton said DeSha was, "the embodiment of everything we could ask of an individual who puts that badge on their chest."
DeSha was survived by her parents, her partner, and her sister, Moriah Moran.
The service started with the arrival of a riderless horse and ended with a recorded "end of watch" broadcast. After the service inside the cathedral, family members and uniformed officers attended an LAPD honors ceremony on the cathedral's plaza as helicopters flew overhead in a "missing man" formation. DeSha's mother released a dove over her daughter's casket.
At the end of the service, Chief Bratton presented DeSha's mother with the folded flag that covered DeSha's casket.
When Officer Gerritsen spoke at the service, she said of her partner, "She had the kindest eyes I've ever looked into. She had wisdom far beyond her years. ... I cherish every moment we spent together, and I have no regrets about the time we did have.
"Spree, I hope you are dancing with the angels now."
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In 2008, the NTSB had been recommending for decades an automatic braking system on rail lines, to prevent the type of collision that happened in Chatsworth. The NTSB also recommended video cameras in locomotive control cabs,
but the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen challenged the cameras in court, claiming that they were an invasion of privacy and wouldn't prevent accidents.
Within weeks after the Chatsworth collision, Congress passed legislation requiring a nationwide system of "Positive Train Control" (PTC). Using GPS signals, the system can automatically monitor every train moving anywhere in the country, slow it down if it's moving too fast, and stop it if it runs through a signal.
The legislation, called the Rail Safety Improvement Act, was signed into law by President George Bush in October 2008 -- one month after the fatal collision in Chatsworth.
In 2015, Metrolink became the first commuter rail line to install the PTC system. In December 2020, the Federal Railroad Administration announced that PTC technology was in operation
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At the east end of the Simi Valley Metrolink station, there is a small memorial garden to honor the crash victims. The area features flat stone markers with the names of all the victims, and a plaque honoring those killed and injured, and the first responders.
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In the months before DeSha's death, she and Gerritsen had discussed ways to protect each other in the event of death or disability -- a particularly relevant consideration for police officers. They hired an attorney who prepared a joint trust, wills and other estate documents for them.
They also discussed officially registering their domestic partnership -- although domestic partnerships were legal at the time, same-sex marriage was not legal in California until 2013. But they decided not to take that step because DeSha was worried that officially exposing her sexual orientation could result in discrimination at work and impede her ability to advance within the department, according to Gerritsen.
Because of the lack of official documentation, the city denied Gerritsen's claim for survivor and pension benefits. Gerritsen sued the city, and a Los Angeles Superior Court judge found in her favor, and awarded her survivorship benefits.
DeSha's parents said that her ashes would be buried in Arizona. "She's coming home with us," her mother said.
Officer DeSha's memorial sign is located at the southeast corner of Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Santa Susana Pass Road
A Guide to the Movie Stars' Final Homes
(Nov. 4, 1972 -- Sept. 12, 2008)