Police inaction puzzles survivor



By DAVID SCHULTE World Staff Writer
9/6/2008


An Owasso man is searching for answers after his wife's death in a hit-and-run accident.


As a former police officer and fire chief, Bob Shouse believes that when a driver leaves the scene of an accident, that alone is cause for an arrest.

That's why he can't understand why the man who fled after crashing an SUV into his wife's motorcycle, causing her death, was never taken into custody and now might have left the country.

"My wife and I had a relationship that most people dream for," said Shouse, who lives in Owasso. "The whole family is in shock, and no one seems to be held accountable for their actions."

On the morning of July 28, Anna Shouse, 46, told her husband that because it was such a beautiful day, she would ride her motorcycle to work.

The administrative assistant at a Tulsa medical clinic shared her husband's passion for riding, and the two occasionally rode their motorcycles on vacation trips.

"She felt very comfortable on a bike, and the enjoyment you get from riding — the wind that blows through your hair," Bob Shouse said. "She was very competent, not an amateur."

Anna Shouse was riding south on North Mingo Road about 6:30 a.m. when a man, later identified as Pedro Urquta Contreras, made an illegal left turn onto Mingo, and the sport utility vehicle he was driving struck Shouse's motorcycle, according to a Tulsa Police Department traffic collision report.

A witness told police that after the collision, Contreras slowed down and looked back but drove on, reports show.

In the middle of the street, Shouse lay unconscious with head trauma and severe leg injuries.

She was taken to St. John Medical Center, where she survived on a respirator for the next four days.

Doctors told Bob Shouse on Aug. 1 that his wife's vital organs were dying and that organ transplants were not a possibility. They were unable to save her.

For Bob Shouse, who has investigated his share of gruesome crime scenes as both a fire chief and a police officer in Owasso in the 1970s and '80s, the hardest thing he has ever done is tell doctors that it was time to "turn that respirator off," he said.

Since his wife's death, he has been troubled as to why no arrest was made.

Less than 24 hours after the accident, Contreras called the police to his apartment and admitted hitting the motorcycle and leaving the scene where Anna Shouse was lying in the road, police reports show.

Leaving the scene of an accident, regardless of the severity of injuries, is a felony, Tulsa Police Detective Alan Franks said, yet Contreras was not arrested.

Shouse's eyes fill with tears as he tries to understand why Contreras was not booked into jail after admitting to the crime.

"In my years of law enforcement, the first thing you do is put the handcuffs on them," he said. "He left the scene of an accident with a person lying in the street."

Franks said the decision about whether to arrest Contreras "was up to the discretion of the officer" who took the report.

A Tulsa police report signed by Officer Demario Gay says that when Contreras was interviewed by police at his home, he told them he had left the scene of the accident because "he was afraid."

When asked why Contreras was not arrested, Gay said he was not present when Contreras admitted to leaving the scene and that it was his understanding that another officer had gone to get an affidavit that would have allowed police to make the arrest.

Gay said he did not know who that officer was.

The police report shows that Contreras, through the help of an interpreter, told police at his home that "he had no valid American driver's license."

Bob Shouse said police told him that the SUV that Contreras was driving that day did not belong to him and that Contreras' automobile insurance documents were bogus.

Franks said a warrant for Contreras' arrest is pending, but Shouse is not optimistic that the man who is responsible for killing his wife will ever be behind bars.

Police have told him that they suspect that Contreras has fled to Mexico, where they believe he is from, Shouse said.

Franks said he "can't confirm or deny that."

The lack of information coming from police has frustrated Shouse.

"I am not going to sit here and think my case is the only one, because it is not," he said. "But if their workload is so heavy, we need more officers."

What Shouse wants is justice.

He also needs time to recover from the pain that comes from losing a loved one, he said.

A home that once was filled with companionship has been replaced with sorrow and loneliness.

"I sit around the house, and it's quiet," he said. "It's not supposed to be that way, and it's emotional.

"It's devastating to lose a family member like that."



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