Thread: Driver accused of crashing during Border Patrol chase charged with murder

Posted: Dec 04, 2018 8:03 AM PST
Updated: Dec 04, 2018 2:19 PM PST
By City News Service

EL CAJON (CNS) - A 21-year-old man accused of leading Border Patrol agents on a high-speed pursuit that ended with a crash on Interstate 8 in Boulevard, killing three of the suspected undocumented immigrants riding in the pickup and injuring seven others, was charged on Tuesday with murder and other counts.

Arraignment for Luis Alberto Virgen, a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana, was postponed until Dec. 18 so he can hire an attorney. He was charged with three counts each of second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter, along with seven counts of reckless driving causing injury.

Virgen, who is being held on $3 million bail, faces up to 45 years to life in prison.

Virgen allegedly sped off when federal officers tried to pull over the passenger-packed white Chevrolet Silverado he was driving near the Mexican border in eastern San Diego County shortly before 4:30 p.m. last Thursday, according to the California Highway Patrol.

With the agents giving chase, Virgen entered Interstate 8 at Buckman Springs Road and fled to the east briefly before exiting at Ribbonwood Road and re-entering the freeway, this time headed west, the Border Patrol reported.

After fleeing for several more miles, the suspect ran over a tire- flattening spike strip that agents had laid across the roadway in his path east of Crestwood Road, according to the federal agency.

About a minute later, the Silverado -- occupied by a single passenger in the front and the rest unrestrained in the cargo bed -- veered off the interstate, went up a dirt embankment, became airborne, overturned and rolled back down the sloping roadside onto the freeway.

Virgen was the only one in the truck wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, and the others were ejected, CHP public-affairs Officer Travis Garrow said. Two of the male passengers and the sole female member of the group died at the scene of the crash.

The names of the deceased were withheld pending family notification.

Paramedics took Virgen and the surviving passengers to a hospital for treatment of moderate to serious injuries, Garrow said.

About an hour after the fatal accident, Border Patrol personnel in the area came across another vehicle believed to have been involved in the apparent human-smuggling attempt and arrested a second man. The suspect's name was not released.

http://www.cbs8.com/story/39585675/a...-killing-three

Give him death penalty and do it within 48 hours!

No rotting in our jail at our expense for 40 years!

Truck in Border Patrol chase, fatal crash was carrying Mexican immigrants in smuggling attempt, officials say

By Greg Norman | Fox News

Truck crashes trying to escape border control

Driver sped away from agents going over 100 mph, 3 people were killed in crash.

An American citizen trying to smuggle nearly a dozen people into the country was behind the wheel of the pickup truck involved in a fatal crash late last week that left three people dead along the U.S.-Mexico border, officials revealed.

Luis Alberto Virgen, a 21-year-old who had been living in Tijuana, is now expected to be arraigned this week on three counts of gross vehicular manslaughter, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The crash happened Thursday in Boulevard, Calif., after a truck believed to be driven by Virgen led Border Patrol agents on a chase that reached speeds of up to 100 mph along the westbound lanes of Interstate 8, weaving in and out of traffic. Three of the 10 passengers onboard the truck died after being flung from it – and all but one were piled into the truck's bed.

The Border Patrol told the Associated Press the passengers who survived the crash are from Mexico. Their exact identities as of Monday, however, are still unclear, and it is not known if they are from the migrant caravans traveling through Mexico. In recent weeks, the caravans have been passing through the region where the crash happened, on the other side of the border.



Cal Fire San Diego firefighters work at the scene of a crash along westbound Interstate 8 in Campo, Calif. (Cal Fire via AP)


The incident began Thursday afternoon when Border Patrol agents discovered tire tracks for several cars that ran from the international border north into the U.S. The agency calls such incidents "drive-throughs" — instances in which cars illegally enter the U.S., often through remote areas.

They found a piece of a vehicle that they recognized as likely being from a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck spotted nearby 10 minutes later. Agents tried to stop the pickup, but it fled, entering and exiting Interstate 8 twice during the ensuing chase, according to witnesses.

Agents then deployed a tire deflation device and the truck lost control within a minute, crashing and rolling over amid the rainy weather.

One of those killed was a 38-year-old Hispanic woman, who was the only female passenger onboard and was riding in the cab of the truck, the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office said. The two others who died were Hispanic males -- one 34 years old and another between the ages of 18 and 25 years, it added.


Three people were killed and eight injured last Thursday when a pickup fleeing Border Patrol agents rolled over near the Mexican border. (Cal Fire via AP)

The passengers who survived reportedly are being treated for their injuries – some of them major.

The incident happened along one of the busiest corridors for illegal crossings on California's border with Mexico. The Border Patrol uses motion and ground sensors as well as cameras, but it is still viewed by smugglers and migrants as a route with better chances of success than San Diego.

Agency spokeswoman Takae Michael told the Associated Press the pickup was traveling with another car before agents spotted it. Agents later found that car abandoned in the driveway of a home, and they arrested 12 people who also were believed to be involved in smuggling.

The Border Patrol has been involved in several fatal pursuit crashes before, including one in Texas this June in which five of 12 passengers in a car being chased by agents died. In March 2016, two people were killed while in a car that was fleeing Border Patrol agents on I-8 near Yuma.

Border Patrol policy states agents can only chase vehicles when the benefit outweighs any immediate danger of such pursuits. It also states that agents can use tire-deflating devices if a vehicle they're trying to stop fails to do so, but that agents should consider how safe it is to do so, like whether there are other cars around and what the area's topography is.

The agency's vehicle pursuit policy was overhauled in the 1990s after a Border Patrol chase in California's Riverside County ended in a deadly crash near a high school. Four students and a father who was driving his son to school were killed.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/3-dead-8-...-mexico-border

Illegal immigrants being smuggled into US causes deadly crash when driver refused to stop

December 3, 2018 |
Tom Tillison

Democrats who fight all attempts to improve US immigration laws or build a wall to help limit illegal immigration routinely ignore how dangerous our porous southern border actually is.
And the poor migrants Democrats claim they care about continue to die, as was seen last week when three illegal aliens died and seven others were seriously injured in a crash on the California side of the US-Mexico border, according to a press release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The driver, identified as an American citizen by Border Patrol, was trying to smuggle the illegal immigrants into the country Thursday in a pickup truck.
Border Patrol caught up to the vehicle after discovering tire tracks near the border and the driver tried to flee.

Fox News reported that witnesses said the truck was weaving recklessly through traffic at speeds up to 100 mph.
After deploying a spike strip, the truck lost control and rolled over.

The crash occurred on westbound I-8 about 60 miles east of San Diego, and a woman and two men were killed, according to authorities.

California Highway Patrol spokesman Officer Travis Garrow said the female was in the cab of the truck and nine men were laying unrestrained in the bed.

It’s not clear if the illegal immigrants were part of the invading migrant caravan that stormed the southern border last week.

The driver is in police custody and could face vehicular manslaughter charges.

A car reportedly traveling with the pickup was later found in the driveway of a home and 12 people suspected of smuggling in illegal immigrants were arrested, Fox News reported.

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2018/12...to-stop-698994