A small memorial -- a candle, bouquet of flowers and a San Francisco Giants baseball cap -- stood Monday morning to remember a man killed by a VTA train in San Jose who witnesses said was chasing a dog across the tracks.
Michael Felter, 51, became the second person killed by a light rail train in the South Bay in the last six months when he was struck about 9 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of Southwest Expressway and Stokes Street, near the Bascom Station.
"He was in the right of way," said Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority spokeswoman Colleen Valles. "The train couldn't stop in time."
Valles said the preliminary investigation suggests the man was fatally struck when he ran in front of a moving light rail train, and a neighbor told NBC Bay Area on Monday that the man was walking someone else's dog, which he might have been chasing. The neighbor, who didn't want to be identified, but who lived in the same apartment complex as the man, said he had suffered a brain injury from a previous car accident and may have not fully had his wits about him.
In January, 14-year-old Danika Tyler Garcia was killed by a VTA train at Stokes Street near Southwest Expressway. The freshman at Del Mar High School in San Jose was riding her bike, and had been rushing to get to a singing performance at school, her cousin said, when she was struck.
NBC Bay Area's Marianne Favro contributed to this report.
