Thread: NC State Trooper CJ Bell sez...

http://www.newsobserver.com/141/story/485983.html

"They fear that immigration officials will get involved if they tell,"

Trooper CJ Bell, NCHWP

Victims of fatal wreck in Johnston identified

Mandy Locke, Staff Writer
The state Highway Patrol has positively identified the two migrant farm workers who died from injuries they suffered in a car crash Sunday morning.

Eliceo Jimenez Santis, a 16-year-old from the village of Las Margaritas in southern Mexican, died at Pitt Memorial Hospital a day after a fellow farm worker took a curve too fast and flipped a large passenger van into a ditch. Moises Velasco Hernandez, 28, from the same town, died instantly in the accident.

The men and more than a dozen fellow laborers headed out Sunday morning to visit a flea market in Smithfield. The men had driven in the same blue Econoline van from the Mexican border weeks earlier to secure jobs at a farm outside Benson.

The state Highway Patrol still hasn't found the driver of the van, said Trooper C.J. Bell. Bell thinks the driver and a few others fled after the crash. The surviving passengers have offered no more than a first name for the driver, who could be charged with a crime if the patrol finds him.

"They fear that immigration officials will get involved if they tell," Bell said.

The patrol will continue to search for the driver, Bell said. It took the Highway Patrol more than two days of interviews to identify the deceased and notify their families. Velasco is survived by his wife and two children in Mexico.

The six other passengers taken to the hospital after the crash have been released and are expected to make a full recovery, Bell said.

The accident took place about 10 a.m. Sunday on N.C. 96 near Barrett Road outside Four Oaks. No other vehicles were involved.
Staff writer Mandy Locke can be reached at 829-8927 or mlocke@newsobserver.com.

I knew when I saw this story on the news and heard that there were 13 people in this minivan that they had to be illegals! I was wondering what was taking so long to tell the identities of the victims. A 16 year old kid--he should have been at home! If our government would enforce our laws at the border instead of turning a blind eye, this kid would be alive today. And what if they had hit another vehicle and killed innocent people? We have to keep on pushing our legislators!

ICE needs to be involved! These people are in the country illegally.

Somebody needs to bring charges against this "farmer" outside Benson.