Thread: Entrant wrecks spike

Entrant wrecks spike
Border crackdown spurs desperation, riskier gambles
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.04.2008

Seven illegal immigrants were killed, and several more were critically injured in Southeastern Arizona vehicle crashes in April — making it the deadliest month for such crashes in nearly four years.
Wrecks and rollovers of overloaded trucks and vans driven at high speeds by smugglers frantically trying to make it north are nothing new:
At least 74 people died from 2002-2004, data from the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center and county medical examiners show.
That number, however, decreased to 37 from 2005 to 2007. None were recorded from Sept. 9, 2007, through March.
That's why the seven deaths in the six serious crashes during April stood out as a sudden spike.
"I can't remember a month where we've had this many in a 30-day period," said Rodney Irby, assistant special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement office of investigations in Tucson.
It ranks as the most deadly month in Southeastern Arizona since September 2004, when 11 people died in three crashes, the Arizona Daily Star's border death database shows.
In the western part of the state, nine died in an Aug. 7, 2006, crash north of Yuma.
Officials who have been following these crashes since they first began regularly occurring in Arizona in the late 1990s say the basic causes remain the same: severely overloaded cars, vehicles that are mechanically unsound, speeding and sometimes inexperienced drivers.
And although nobody can explain the spike in wrecks last month, the increase of law enforcement, especially Border Patrol agents, and the heightened emphasis on stopping illegal immigration has made more people smugglers desperate.
Indicator of crackdown
"With more enforcement on the border, those loads and those aliens that get past that initial area become more of a precious commodity," said Irby, who has been in Southern Arizona since 1991. And smugglers are eager to get out of the area quickly, he said.
The U.S. Border Patrol considers the crashes an indicator that they're cracking down on smuggling, said Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief Robert W. Gilbert.
"The border is harder to cross than it was yesterday, so the desperation level of the criminal smuggling organizations, drug and alien smuggling, is higher," Gilbert said. "It's frustration."
April's crashes occurred throughout Southeastern Arizona with two in Cochise County, three in Pima County (including one on the Tohono O'odham Reservation) and one in Pinal County.
Six victims were Mexican men, and the seventh was a Guatemalan woman. At least two others were in comas, a few suffered brain damage, and at least 80 people were taken to hospitals, officials say.
All the crashes occurred in overloaded vehicles.
"If you take a vehicle that has a reasonable center of gravity and you put 30 people in it, you totally change the physics of the way the vehicle behaves and the people driving it clearly don't know that," said Dan Judkins, trauma educator and injury epidemiologist at University Medical Center.
Turns or curves in the road often trigger the crashes, especially at high speeds, said Judkins, who studied 38 crashes from 1999 to 2003 and helped author an article on the subject in the journal, American Surgeon.
Most of the illegal immigrants packed in aren't wearing seatbelts, either. That increases their chances of being ejected and dying.
The risk of serious injury or death increases by 500 percent for people thrown out of a car, said Judkins, citing studies done at University Medical Center.
The 9 percent mortality rate among the 663 passengers in the 38 crashes reviewed by Judkins from 1999 to 2003 was significantly higher than typical vehicle crashes, he said.
It all combines for a grim recipe.
"You overload a car, you think you see a border patrolman or a highway patrolman or anybody, and you are scared to death, so you just take off," Judkins said.
"And, the first curve you go around, the center of gravity is so high that it starts to roll."
New dynamics
Although the causes of the crashes remain the same as the late 1990s and early 2000s, the presence of law enforcement trying to slow illegal immigration has increased in Southern Arizona, Irby said.
There are currently 2,900 Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector, up from 1,600 in 2002. In addition, sheriffs deputies and Arizona Department of Public Safety officers are also on the lookout for suspicious vehicles.
And, the border is more difficult to cross than it used to be. In addition to the influx of agents, there are more physical barriers at the border. Currently, 146 of the Tucson Sector's 262 miles of border covered with pedestrian fencing or vehicle barriers, up from 56 miles in September 2006.
"Not only is local law enforcement more aware, but the political climate and public sentiment has created an environment here where they (smugglers) feel anxiety," Irby said. "I think they are feeling the pressure."
Most crashes don't happen as a result of a pursuit, but rather because drivers are sometimes inexperienced and always scared, Judkins said.
Only one of the six crashes — an April 9 one south of Tucson that left three injured — came during a pursuit, according to law enforcement accounts.
Even when the drivers aren't being pursued, the drivers often drive maniacally, officials say.
The passengers in an April 13 double fatal east of Sierra Vista told Arizona Department of Public Safety investigators that the driver was "driving like a maniac," Craig said.
He wasn't being pursued by anybody, and there was no law enforcement in the area, she said.
"A lot of those guys run scared anyway," Craig said.
Smugglers sometimes grab one of the illegal immigrants in the group and force them to drive because they know the penalties are stiff for drivers in these accidents, said Gilbert, of the Border Patrol.
Serious concern
April's spike is a serious concern for Southern Arizona law enforcement and health care officials alike.
Even though they have experience, trauma centers such as University Medical Center are put under tremendous pressure when they are forced to respond to a multiple- casualty incident, which many of these crashes become, Judkins said.
Officials at four Tucson hospitals that treated 29 illegal immigrants injured in a rollover crash on April 7 near Benson said the costs would be sizable and largely unreimbursed, and eventually passed on to consumers.
But, the loss of life trumps any monetary concerns.
"We've always known that human smugglers have a disregard for the people in their care, that they are interested in maximizing profits," said Vincent Picard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman.
"Our main concern about this recent trend is this practice of trying to squeeze 30 people into a pickup truck. It is going to lead a to disaster far more frequently than not."

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/237365

A lot of these drivers are meth addicts and tend to be paranoid to begin with, transporting a group of illegals is a quick easy way to pick up a lot of cash for more drugs as long as they don't get caught.