Even before Sunday's fatal accident in which two teenage boys were hit by a Maryland Transit Administration light rail train in Lutherville, a serious crime apparently took place a short distance away.
According to the MTA, someone - whose identity is not yet known to the public - placed a large section of highway guardrail across the northbound tracks just south of the station.
That act of vandalism - if not outright sabotage - has been overshadowed by the tragedy that occurred about an hour later, but it set in motion the chain of events that led to the deaths of Kyle Patrick Wankmiller and Connor Peterson, both 17.
According to MTA spokeswoman Jawauna Greene, the boys were struck by a northbound train as they walked on southbound tracks that had been put into two-way operation because the roughly 10-foot-long guardrail had damaged an earlier train. "It started the whole chain of events," she said.
Transit experts say an object of that size on the rails could endanger people's lives.
"If a train had hit something like that, it could have derailed the train," said Lou Sanders, director of technical services at the American Public Transit Association. He said sabotage would not be too strong a term for such an action.
Nevertheless, Greene acknowledged that MTA police did not immediately treat the site of the guardrail strike as a major crime scene. She said it is not uncommon for people to place objects on the tracks, and the agency puts an emphasis on clearing the obstruction and keeping traffic moving.
"People have placed things on the tracks for a while now and we generally just clean it up and keep moving," she said. "It's really considered a maintenance issue."
Not counting naturally occurring obstructions such as fallen tree limbs, Greene said the MTA has found a wide variety of objects placed on its light rail tracks since the system opened in the early 1990s.
"The objects change, the locations change," she said. "Guardrail is pretty extreme." Without providing specifics, the spokeswoman said it was not the first time a guardrail had been found on MTA tracks.
The issue is a difficult one for public transit agencies because it pits their need to protect riders' safety against the mission of getting them to their destination in a timely manner. Preserving a crime scene could cause major delays.
