Warning: This article contains graphic content which some readers may find distressing.
Police in California have arrested a 27-year-old man accused of taking the leg of a person who was hit by a train away from the scene and eating it.
Officers arrested Resendo Tellez after the incident unfolded on Friday (March 22), when a pedestrian was struck by a train at the Amtrak Station in the 700 block of G Street in Wasco.
Deputies responded with the BNSF Railroad Police Department to news of the collision at around 8am local time after receiving a report.
Amtrak has confirmed one person died when they were hit by the train, though the identity of the victim has not been released.
The crash is believed to have severed the leg of the pedestrian, but the situation is said to have become more horrifying deputies learned that a man allegedly removed evidence the leg from the scene.
His alleged actions were witnessed by a crew of workers who were laying concrete outside the station in Wasco.
Jose Ibarra, one of the workers, told KUTV: “I’m not sure from where, but he walked this way and he was waving a person’s leg.”
Ibarra further claimed that the man continued to walk with the leg before he started ‘chewing on it’.
KBAK – KBFX – Eyewitness News – BakersfieldNow
“He was biting it and he was hitting it against the wall and everything,” Ibarra said. “On the leg, the skin was hanging. You could see the bone.”
Ibarra recalled thinking the man was homeless when he walked past him with the leg.
Footage of the man has been shared on social media, showing him walking down the street with what appears to be the leg in his hands, at times crouching over it or waving it around.
Behind the camera, witnesses can be heard saying he is ‘eating’ the leg.
After being alerted to the situation by workers at the Amtrak station, police were able to track down the man accused of taking the leg and place him under arrest without incident.
KBAK – KBFX – Eyewitness News – BakersfieldNow
As well as being arrested for taking evidence from the scene, Tellez was taken into custody on multiple outstanding warrants.
Investigators with the BNSF Railroad Police are now investigating the incident.
According to the California Penal Code, willfully destroying or concealing evidence that you are aware is relevant to a legal proceeding such as a trial, inquiry or investigation is a misdemeanor crime punishable by a term of up to six months in county jail and fines up to $1,000.
UNILAD has contacted the BNSF Railroad Police Department and Kern County Sheriff’s Office for updates on the investigation.