MANILA, Philippines — A 74-year-old Filipina died in California after a homeless man pushed her onto a moving train in San Francisco. A UPI report said Corazon Dandan hit her head against the train and fell on the platform.
Bay Area Rapid Transit police inside the train station arrested Trevor Belmont, 49, shortly after he allegedly pushed Dandan onto an oncoming train Monday night at the BART Powell Street Station.
He was charged with one count of murder.
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins described the crime as “tragic and truly shocking.”
“Unprovoked attacks, especially on our most vulnerable, are unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Jenkins said in a statement.
The victim was on her way home from work as a telephone operator at a hotel at Union Square in San Francisco and was waiting for the train to ride home to Daly City.
Dr. Alvin Dandan, the victim’s nephew and an intensive care doctor in Illinois, said his aunt rode the BART every day to and from work.
He and his cousins recently warned their aunt about taking the train late at night.
The victim, he said, was divorced and remained single and was a “brave, independent woman” who grew up in the Philippines and moved by herself to the United States in the 1980s.