Wednesday, April 22, 2009 By STEVE DOYLETimes Staff Writer steve.doyle@htimes.com
Police asked to attend meeting to discuss suspect

While Huntsville police sort out the identity of the man charged in the traffic deaths of two young Huntsvillians, City Council members also have questions.

Council President Mark Russell has asked police department leaders to attend Thursday's council meeting to talk about the 25-year-old suspect, Felix Dominguez Ortega. According to police, Ortega was wanted on an outstanding warrant for driving under the influence when he caused Friday night's deadly crash at the busy Airport Road-Whitesburg Drive intersection.

"My questions mainly center around why was this guy not in jail?" Russell said Tuesday. "It seems to me that he should not be out driving our streets."

The council meets at 6 p.m. Thursday at Huntsville City Hall, 308 Fountain Circle.

Councilman Bill Kling said he also wonders how Ortega remained free considering the warrant and questions about whether he is in the U.S. legally. Police have not called Ortega an illegal immigrant but say he was carrying a fake identification card at the time of the wreck.

"The problem as I see it is not the Huntsville Police Department - it's Congress," Kling said Tuesday. "They will not give cities the authority to deal with this problem" of illegal immigration.

At 8:53 p.m. Friday, Huntsville police received a call about a possible drunken driver in a white pickup truck hitting a parked vehicle at an apartment complex near Patton Road. Three minutes later, a patrol officer spotted the truck heading toward Memorial Parkway on Johnson Road. Huntsville Police Sgt. Mark Roberts said the driver fled when he saw the patrol car's lights, even though the officer was not in hot pursuit.

Moments later, the truck plowed into a Toyota Supra at the Airport-Whitesburg intersection. The Supra burst into flames, killing sweethearts Leigh Anna Jimmerson and Tad Joseph Mattle.

Jimmerson, 16, was a popular Grissom High School sophomore. Mattle, 19, graduated from Grissom last spring and had just been awarded a full academic scholarship to the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

After being released from Huntsville Hospital, Ortega was charged with two counts of murder, driving without a license, possession of a forged instrument and a seat belt violation.

Roberts said police are struggling to figure out Ortega's past because he has used at least three aliases - Adan Herrera, Reynaldo Martinez and Juan Sanchez.

"We found all these aliases when we started going through the computer," he said. "We're not sure who he is."

Ortega's citizenship status is "kind of a moot point" now that he is locked up on murder charges and unlikely to make bail, Roberts said. He is in the metro jail on bonds totaling $2 million.

"Our investigation is really going from the wreck on," Roberts said.




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