http://sun.yumasun.com/artman/publish/a ... _22776.php

YCSO may charge illegal alien in death of his daughter
BY JEFFREY GAUTREAUX, SUN STAFF WRITER
Mar 6, 2006

Authorities are seeking to prosecute an illegal alien from Mexico who they say contributed to the death of his 12-year-old daughter Sunday night.

Lourdes Cruz-Morales was killed when she and her father, Juan Cruz-Torralva, 26, were run over by a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle that they were trying to elude by hiding in brush, according to the Yuma County Sheriff's Office. The accident occurred at 7:40 p.m. in desert about 5-1/2 miles southwest of Milepost 78 on Interstate 8.

YCSO Capt. Eben Bratcher said the agency wants charges brought against Cruz-Torralva because he brought his 12-year-old daughter on a 30-mile hike through the desert after illegally entering the United States.

"He endangered her life there, but then he contributed to her death by hiding," Bratcher said. "He could have just stood up and avoided the whole thing."

Bratcher said YCSO would be working to have charges of reckless manslaughter or endangerment filed against the father.

Cruz-Morales was pronounced dead at the scene. Cruz-Torralva was flown to Yuma Regional Medical Center, where he was admitted with spinal injuries, YCSO said. He was in fair condition Monday at YRMC, according to a hospital spokeswoman.

The father and daughter had crossed the border from Mexico, but Bratcher did not know where they were from in Mexico or when they crossed. He said Border Patrol agents from the Wellton station had been tracking a large group in the area, but he did not know if the two were part of it. Bratcher said agents apprehended some of the illegal aliens from that group.

YCSO has interviewed the Border Patrol agents who were patrolling. Bratcher said investigators have found no sign of wrongdoing on the agents' part. "There's no reason to suspect anything else but an accident," he said.

Investigators have spoken to Cruz-Torralva briefly, but not in depth, Bratcher said.

Yuma sector Border Patrol spokesman Rick Hays said the Border Patrol was conducting an investigation of the incident and could not comment until it was completed.

Bratcher said similar incidents where illegal aliens have been struck by Border Patrol vehicles have occurred in the past, but this is the first in recent memory.

According to The Sun archives, in May 2000, an illegal alien from Mexicali was injured when he was run over near Sidewinder Road. The next month, a 16-year-old boy from Mexico was injured when he was struck near County 22nd Street and Avenue 1E.

Cruz-Torralva is not in the custody of the Sheriff's Office. Bratcher expected that Border Patrol had placed a detainer on him.