“Falling asleep, by itself, is fundamentally not a crime.”
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It’s unlikely any crime occurred in the Metro-North derailment in New York earlier this month that killed four people, sources told DNA Info on Monday. Investigators said the conductor, William Rockefeller, had gone to bed at 8:30 p.m. the night before the crash, his cell phone was off, and toxicology reports show he had not been drinking or using drugs. “Falling asleep, by itself, is fundamentally not a crime, not even for a motorman driving a train,” said a law enforcement source. “There was nothing mitigating here. He was not drunk, on the phone, or out partying the night before, and he went to sleep at a reasonable hour.”
