Thread: Driver charged in fatal Raleigh crash was in US after deportations

Driver charged in fatal Raleigh crash was in US after deportations

BY RON GALLAGHER
rgallagher@newsobserver.comNovember 3, 2014 Updated 6 hours ago
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Mateo Palacio Guzman, 32.

CCBI

RALEIGH — The man charged with driving a vehicle that killed two people in a hit-and-run crash on New Bern Avenue on Saturday is a Mexican native who has been deported from the United States three times, federal officials confirmed Monday.

Mateo Palacio Guzman, 32, was arrested Sunday and charged with two counts of misdemeanor death by vehicle, two counts of felony leaving the scene of an accident, driving with a suspended license and running a red light before the crash at New Bern Avenue and Trawick Road.
Guzman, who was convicted of driving while impaired in Wake County in July 2011 and of driving with a revoked license in Randolph County in October 2011, was deported from the U.S. in 2006 and twice in 2012, Immigration and Customs Enforcement regional spokesman Vincent Picard said.

“ICE lodged a detainer on Mateo Palacio Guzman, a citizen of Mexico, at the Wake County Jail following his arrest on local criminal charges,” Picard, who is based in Atlanta, said in a statement. “Mr. Palacio Guzman was previously removed from the United States in 2006 and twice in 2012.” Picard did not specify what led to Guzman’s previous deportations.

When a magistrate was setting bail for Guzman on Sunday, an immigration check resulted in a request from ICE for him to be held for 48 hours for the agency to determine its actions. At his first court appearance Monday, Guzman’s bail was raised to $510,000, and he remained in custody. Guzman, who is identified by that name in Wake County arrest records and state corrections records, was identified after his arrest as Mateo Guzman-Palacio.

Brittany Williams, 24, and Naomi Mercury, 18, died as a result of injuries suffered in the crash, which happened just before 12:30 a.m. Saturday.
Three other people suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, police said in a statement.
Gallagher: 919-829-4572

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/...#storylink=cpy

Originally Posted by MW

“ICE lodged a detainer on Mateo Palacio Guzman, a citizen of Mexico, at the Wake County Jail following his arrest on local criminal charges,” Picard, who is based in Atlanta, said in a statement

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Did the DOJ let him out long enough to vote?

Man charged in Raleigh double fatal hit-and-run crash had been deported

(Brave woman gives chase so as to ID vehicle)


Monday, November 03, 2014 06:21PM

RALEIGH (WTVD) --
Raleigh police arrested a man Sunday who they say is the driver who ran a red light, slammed into another car killing two people, and then sped off.

Mateo Guzman, 32, was being held on a $510,000 bond at the Wake County Detention Center. A judge increased the bond Monday after learning Guzman was deported after a 2011 DWI conviction and returned to the U.S.

"They found the car at his house in the process of being put on trailer trying to hide the evidence so we've got some concerns about this defendant," said prosecutor Jeff Cruden.

Guzman was arrested early Sunday based on information that came from an eyewitness.

"Someone's got to stop it, someone's got to do something," said Angel Turner, who happened to drive up to the scene of the accident. That was just after midnight Saturday morning at the intersection of New Bern Avenue and Trawick Road.

Turner said she did not see the initial impact, but that she actually heard the crash over her car radio and she could not believe what she saw next.

"I saw him pretty much try to bum rush the car over so he could leave the scene," said Turner. "I could see he was actually damaging his car more as he was pushing the car out of the way, so I was taking note of that so I could give police a good description."

Turner said while the truck was pushing the other car, she said the driver of the car jumped out.

"And he was screaming, just so upset, full of grief, so I just took off," Turner said.

She followed the truck onto I-40.

"Once we went on the highway heading west, toward Capital and Brentwood, he turned his lights off," said Turner.

Fearing for her own safety at that point, she returned to the scene of the accident to tell police everything she had seen.

She would later learn the girlfriend of that emotional driver -- 18-year-old Naomi Mercury -- was killed in the accident. Also killed was 24-year-old Brittany Williams. Both were students at Wake Tech. Mercury studied psychology, and Williams took science classes. Williams was also about to become engaged. Her boyfriend was also in the car and survived.





Guzman is charged with two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle, driving while license suspended, failing to stop at a red light, and two counts of felony hit-and-run.

Turner, who has a daughter herself, said she hopes the quick arrest will give the families some way to cope with the tragic loss.

"I can't even imagine you saying goodbye to your daughter to go have fun with friends and then the next thing you know you're getting a phone call," said Turner. "These peoples' lives are going to be changed forever."

http://abc11.com/news/man-charged-in...ported/377016/

This is such a tragedy! One of the couples involved were to be married. This Guzman "person" needs to spend a VERY long time in prison here, and then deport him when he's an old man. This is the tragic result of our porous borders!!

There should be no such thing as misdemeanor death by motor vehicle, never or ever! It is to keep judges, police and politicians out of jail. Death penalty would be more right than wrong! Especially so when DUI.

Illegal alien crimes are 100 preventable if our existing immigration and border laws were enforced as our citizens and Constitution demand.

So sad to see these young people in North Carolina join the thousands of Americans being slaughtered by illegal aliens each year our American laws go unenforced.

W

Man charged in Raleigh fatal crash held phony green card, US says

BY RON GALLAGHER
rgallagher@newsobserver.comNovember 4, 2014
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Mateo Palacio Guzman

CCBI

RALEIGH — Mateo Palacio Guzman, charged with causing a crash that killed two people Saturday, apparently eluded U.S. Border Patrol agents to get back into the United States sometime after mid-2012 and was carrying a counterfeit green card when he was arrested, officials said Tuesday.
The man police knew as Mateo Guzman-Palacio when they charged him with fleeing the crash scene was carrying what appeared to be a green-card immigration document with that name, police spokeswoman Laura Hourigan said.
That document was a forgery, Immigration and Customs Enforcement regional spokesman Vincent Picard said Tuesday. Guzman, which is how ICE knows the man with the driver’s fingerprints, has been deported three times, Picard said.
Police say Brittany Williams, 24, and Naomi Mercury, 18, died from injuries after Guzman reportedly ran a red light and hit their vehicle Saturday at the intersection of New Bern Avenue and Trawick Road.
Guzman had first encountered the Border Patrol in 2006, when he was trying to enter the U.S. illegally and was sent back to Mexico, Picard said. Sometime between then and his DWI arrest by the State Highway Patrol on the Fourth of July in 2011, he came into the country and arrived in North Carolina.
Guzman most recently left North Carolina in July 2012, telling a federal judge in Charlotte he would go voluntarily rather than being forcibly deported, Picard said, after being convicted the month before in Randolph County of driving with a revoked license and also in Wake County in August 2011 of DWI. He got suspended sentences both times, state records show.
The same month Guzman told the judge he would go, Picard said, the Border Patrol stopped him trying to cross the border back into Laredo, Texas. He was convicted of illegal re-entry, a felony, and deported a third time, Picard said.
Picard said it is not unusual for an illegal immigrant to have a bogus green card. Illegal document vendors are readily available to produce them, he said. What matters is fingerprints, Picard said.
A federal program called “Secure Communities” makes a check of the immigration fingerprint database standard at the same time arrested people’s prints are submitted to the National Crime Information Center database for comparison.
Gallagher: 919-829-4572


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Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/11/...#storylink=cpy

DEPORTED THREE TIMES?!

He's a poster child for what's wrong with illegal immigration in the US!!!

Yep, a suspended driver's license, revoked license, forged green card holder, deported three times and it doesn't seem like he has really ever done any time in jail or prison! An illegal return after a previous deportation is a felony and should net you some prison time. We give illegal aliens absolutely no reason to fear or respect for our immigration laws.