Thread: TX:Abandoned Accident Leads to Suspected Alien's Arrest

Published: November 18, 2008 11:13 pm

Abandoned accident leads to arrest

By Matthew Jackson
Staff Reporter

A routine response to an abandoned car accident early Monday morning quickly transformed into a manhunt and eventually led to the arrest of a Houston man, Huntsville Police officials said Tuesday.

According to Lt. Wes Altom of the HPD, the incident began at around 5 a.m. when a passerby called in a report of a single vehicle accident at mile marker 112 on I-45, near the TDCJ Goree Unit.

When an HPD officer responded to the scene, they discovered that the vehicle was unoccupied, but the accident appeared to have been recent.

The responding officer called in the license plate numbers on the vehicle, a beige Mazda, and discovered that the vehicle had been reported stolen in Plano only three hours earlier.

Further information revealed that the driver of the vehicle was wanted for aggravated robbery, after he reportedly stabbed the vehicle’s owner while stealing it.

An aggressive manhunt then began in earnest. Huntsville Police called in all day-shift officers early to assist in the search, along with scent dogs from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. A request for a Department of Public Safety helicopter was also issued, but the helicopter was not used.

The search had been underway for two hours when Officer Cameron Mattison of the HPD stopped to address an Elkins Lake resident in the 100 block of Augusta Drive.

According to Altom, Mattison saw a woman walking out of her house and starting her car to warm it up. Mattison stopped to talk to the woman, informing her of the danger of the fugitive.

The woman told Mattison that she had heard a suspicious noise outside her home at around 5:30 a.m. that morning that sounded like someone shaking a door.

Mattison then conducted a search of the property. While searching the driveway, he looked inside another, unused vehicle and found an adult Hispanic male sleeping in the back seat.

Mattison then called for backup and took the man into custody without incident. The suspect was confirmed to be the driver of the stolen vehicle, and was identified as Alberto Perado, 26, of Houston.

Perado’s time of arrest was officially given as 7:10 a.m. He was then transported to the Walker County Jail and charged with theft, due to being in possession of a stolen vehicle.

When Perado was discovered, there was blood on his clothing, but it was not determined if the blood was the result of the stabbing he allegedly perpetrated earlier that morning or the car accident.

The Walker County Communications Center also responded to the incident, activating their Code Red emergency alert system that morning.

“We issued the calls to a limited area,â€

Good police work lets hope ICE holds up there end and puts a hold on him ASAP