Thread: ILLEGAL Not Arrested After Fatal Hit & Run — Why?

Councilors irked by lack of arrest

By P.J. LASSEK World Staff Writer 9/18/2008

A suspect in a fatal hit-and-run allegedly had admitted his role.

Two city councilors on Tuesday challenged the Tulsa Police Department's failure to arrest a man after he allegedly admitted his involvement in a fatal hit-and-run accident.

"I would think everybody would understand our concern about this," Councilor Bill Christiansen said. "The perception of this whole thing is bad."

Pedro Urquta Contreras, 37, was booked into the Tulsa Jail last week, more than a month after he admitted to a police officer that he hit a motorcycle on July 28 and left the scene, police and jail records show.

The motorcycle rider, Anna Shouse, 46, was left lying in the street after the crash and died at a hospital four days later.

The Tulsa World on Sept. 6 reported Contreras' alleged confession and lack of arrest.

He was arrested and charged Sept. 8 with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, running a red light and driving without a license. The red-light charge was amended the next day to negligent homicide.

Councilors were told that it wasn't until Contreras was booked into jail that officials learned that he was an illegal immigrant from Honduras. A hold was added to his record for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Police Chief Ron Palmer said Contreras' immigration status played no role in the officer's reluctance to arrest him in July, because officers don't ask whether someone is in the country illegally.

Even though Contreras admitted through a nonsanctioned interpreter that he was the driver of the vehicle that hit Shouse, other variables, such as a lack of corroborating evidence, were involved, and the officer chose not to arrest him, Palmer said.

By law, the officer has that discretion, he said.

Christiansen queried: "So this guy commits a hit-and-run, doesn't have a valid driver's license, and the officer just uses his discretion and elects not to arrest him?"

"It wasn't picture-perfect," Palmer said. "Me, myself, I probably would have made the arrest. I like a bird-in-hand concept and then work it out."

Councilor Jack Henderson said he doesn't understand why a confession isn't enough to make an arrest.

"If someone says, 'Yep, it was me,' you had him," Henderson said. "You had a chance to arrest him before he went out there and maybe hurt someone else."

Palmer said people sometimes admit to crimes that they haven't committed.

"If there is uncertainty on the part of the officer, that demands further investigation," he said.

Councilors John Eagleton and Rick Westcott, both attorneys, agreed that a confession by itself doesn't establish probable cause for an arrest.

Henderson said he has watched people get arrested, and "I've never seen a situation where someone has said, 'Yep, it's me,' and they weren't arrested.

"It's hard to believe, because most citizens think they get arrested for nothing."
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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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David Schulte 581-8367
david.schulte@tulsaworld.com
By DAVID SCHULTE World Staff Writer



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Police Chief Ron Palmer said Contreras' immigration status played no role in the officer's reluctance to arrest him in July, because officers don't ask whether someone is in the country illegally.

I have no doubt that an American citizen under similiar circumstances, would have been taken straight to jail! I have no doubt about that!

So I hope you are not offended when I say that I do not believe a word you are saying Chief!! His immigration status should have played a substantial role in your decision to arrest, since he should have been considered a high risk for flight!