Man Arrested After Allegedly Barricading Himself in Amtrak Train Bathroom With Gun

When deputies arrived, the train was evacuated, with the exception of the auto carrying the suspected armed passenger, who locked himself in.

The Amtrak train on the tracks in Chatsworth.

Los Angeles police deployed tear gas to end an 8-hour-long standoff with an armed man who barricaded himself on board an Amtrak train early Saturday morning, The Associated Press reported.

Authorities were searching for a man, reported to be armed, on an Amtrak train in the San Fernando Valley this evening.

The standoff ended almost eight hours later after tear gas was deployed, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Police were alerted at 6.20pm on Friday after a passenger saw the gunman acting erratically and holding a weapon aboard the Amtrak 790 traveling along the Pacific Surfliner route to San Diego.

Word the standoff ended came from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which tweeted a photograph of the suspect on Saturday. Though police initially evacuated only those in the carriage where Palmer was, the entire train was evacuated after they discovered Palmer had locked himself inside a bathroom, according to KABC.

The man apparently barricaded himself in the bathroom and authorities at the scene exhausted to coax him out. All Metrolink traffic through the area had been stopped, he said. All 187 passengers and 5 crew have safely left the train and remain inside the Chatsworth station.