In Truckee, California, Aaron Salazar was found beaten and left for dead beside railroad tracks. The injuries he suffered from are severe and focused on his crotch including: a broken pelvis, burns on his groin, and inner thigh area. He also suffers from a damaged brain stem, all of which we believe was motivated by homophobia.



All of this, alongside other evidence such as blood under his finger nails, and cuts on his knuckles have led the family to believe he was attacked on the train. Unfortunately Amtrak, a company who is for profit, and is not a government entity has full jurisdiction over their investigation, and has prematurely ruled it an attempted suicide.



Within the first four hours of being found, Amtrak detectives ruled Aaron's attack an attempted suicide, and went as far as to tell the family a witness saw Aaron jump out of the train. That statement was quickly retracted when confronted with information from Amtrak HQ that disputed their case. Detectives also claimed that because Aaron had high blood pressure it could have been cause for him to jump out of the train. As much as we would like to trust Amtrak we fear that this case is being investigated with a bias to protect the company from any liabilities.



Amtrak's detectives refused to take any forensic evidence, including the blood found under Aaron's finger nails which were pointed out to the detectives. They simply took pictures of Aaron's body, and left without bringing any medical experts in. Many see the inconsistencies with Amtrak's investigation, and still Amtrak refuses to cooperate with the family, or open their investigation up to the FBI for proper analysis. Currently Amtrak's whole investigation has been a series of interviews that consist of asking people many weighted questions that haven't shown to bring forth any new or relevant information.



Amtrak needs to open up their investigation to the FBI given that they have been dishonest when making claims, and secretive during the investigation process. Like Aaron, Robin Puntman's case was too dismissed by Amtrak. The fact that Aaron is just one of many individuals who have lived through similar situations all while using Amtrak's services has to be rightfully acknowledged.



Please sign this petition in solidarity with the family to pressure Amtrak to open their investigation to proper authorities to investigate it for what it is, a hate crime, so we may truly get Justice for Aaron