When hospital ship USNS Mercy pulled into the Port of Los Angeles this past Friday to alleviate strain on regional healthcare facilities, it wasn't met with the same foolhardy curiosity as her sister ship USNS Comfort on arrival in New York. Instead, a local locomotive engineer viewed the humanitarian vessel with such suspicion that he attempted to damage or sink the ship by ramming it with a train.

Eduardo Moreno, a 44-year-old Pacific Harbor Line engineer, admitted to a California Highway Patrol officer Tuesday that on a whim, he decided to ram the hospital ship, stating he didn't believe that "the ship is what they say it's for" according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Cab footage shows Moreno lighting a flare in the locomotive's cab before crashing through the concrete buffer at the end of the line, with the train aimed at the USNS Mercy. A CHP officer that witnessed the event recalled seeing "the train smash into a concrete barrier at the end of the track, smash into a steel barrier, smash into a chain-link fence, slide through a parking lot, slide across another lot filled with gravel, and smash into a second chain-link fence." Moreno's locomotive came to a halt just past the onramp to the Port of Los Angeles-spanning Vincent Thomas Bridge, some 250 yards from the Mercy.