Posted on 03/17/2006 4:06:25 PM PST by SandRat
The driver of a pickup truck that ran a checkpoint at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on Tuesday headed back to his native Mexico in an ambulance Thursday and may never be prosecuted, Tucson police said.
The driver, an illegal entrant, was taken from University Medical Center to a medical facility in Sonora, said Sgt. Mark Robinson, a Tucson Police Department spokesman. Police had no choice but to let him go, Robinson said, because their investigation isn't finished and no criminal charges have been filed against the man.
"There are times when people leave the jurisdiction before we can make a criminal case," the sergeant said. Though the driver recovered enough from his injuries to be transported, police were not able to interview him before he left. They also have not interviewed the passenger, who remains at UMC. The passenger is not suspected of wrongdoing at this time.
The two were in a 1999 Dodge pickup truck that sped through a D-M entrance checkpoint at South Swan and East Golf Links roads and crashed into a roadblock aimed at preventing illegal base entry. Both were seriously injured but their conditions improved and they were listed as fair on Thursday.
Police have identified the driver as 28-year-old Fidel Antonio Lopez-Sanchez of Nogales, Sonora, and the passenger as Saul Cazares Carrillo, 24, of the 16000 block of West Greenwald Street, near Three Points, about 20 miles west of Tucson.
Police said the driver, Lopez-Sanchez, was found with a loaded handgun at his feet and possible cocaine in his pocket. They also said the truck's cab smelled heavily of alcohol at the time of the accident.
Test results that will determine whether narcotics or DUI charges are warranted won't be back from the overburdened state laboratory for a few more weeks, Robinson said.
Charges still could be filed at that point and a warrant issued for the driver's arrest. But he is not likely to be arrested unless he returns to Southern Arizona and has another run-in with police, Robinson said.
Authorities don't know why the men crashed into D-M, but they suspect it was because they were confused about their location.
UMC spokeswoman Katie Riley said it is not unusual for the hospital to send foreign patients back to their homeland for treatment if conditions allow. UMC doctors determined Lopez-Sanchez was in good enough shape to be moved, she said.
She wouldn't say whether Lopez-Sanchez requested the move, citing medical privacy laws. Police have not been able to contact the owner of the Dodge truck, which is registered to a resident of Nogales, Ariz. The vehicle has not been reported stolen, Robinson said.
and the saga at D-M continues.
This should raise your Blood-Pressure!
Scrappleface. Gotta be scrapple face. How did he hijack the Arizona Star's URL?
Charges still could be filed at that point and a warrant issued for the driver's arrest. But he is not likely to be arrested unless he returns to Southern Arizona and has another run-in with police, Robinson said.
I am zipping my lips and not saying a word.
Gonna sit on your hands too?
Man, I wish I was an illegal alien. That get "out of jail" card rocks.
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