Alleged Detainee 
Alleged Driver
Add eupehemism to the list; undocumented entrants
Posted on 04/29/2005 5:29:59 PM PDT by axes_of_weezles
By Becky Pallack ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A Tucson man who told authorities that he'd used video games to practice his driving skills is accused of leading officers on a 25-mile high-speed chase Thursday.
Jose Manuel Lopez, 22, also crashed his car through a fence along Interstate 19 during the chase and into a yard on the South Side before running into a Mexican food restaurant, where he finally surrendered, officers said.
Lopez, of the 5600 block of South Mission Road, was arrested on six felony counts and was taken to the Pima County jail. Investigators said he fled because he was smuggling four illegal entrants in his Cadillac.
No one was injured in the pursuit, which lasted less than 15 minutes and reached speeds of more than 110 mph.
The chase began around 11 a.m. on I-19 just south of Green Valley when Officer Keith Duckett of the Arizona Department of Public Safety tried to stop the gray 1991 Cadillac sedan for a traffic violation.
But instead of pulling over, the driver accelerated and kept heading north, said Officer Jim Oien, a DPS spokesman who also was involved in the chase.
Other DPS officers put out spike strips at Papago Road and again at the Santa Cruz River, he said, but both times Lopez swerved through the median and around the spikes.
By then, the DPS helicopter was following Lopez's Cadillac, so Duckett backed off.
Oien had blocked off the Valencia Road off-ramp to prevent Lopez from driving onto city streets. Lopez continued down I-19 past him, driving at least 100 mph, jerking in and out of traffic and passing people on the shoulder, Oien said.
"When he went by me, he was doing 100 miles an hour and the traffic's doing like 55, and he's dodging in and out of cars like they're nothing," Oien said. "Just totally crazy stuff. Absolutely no regard for other people's safety."
Lopez finally left the freeway near Drexel Road - where there is no exit ramp - by driving through the 6-foot chain-link right-of-way fence.
"He blasted through it like it wasn't there," Oien said.
The helicopter followed Lopez east through a neighborhood.
"He was driving like a madman on residential streets in the Drexel/Mission Manor area," Oien said. "We're lucky he didn't kill somebody."
Lopez ended up in the front yard of a house in the 800 block of West Iowa Street, just south of Irvington Road. He got out and made a run for it, leaving his four stunned passengers to surrender to officers.
Lopez ran another quarter-mile through an alley, where Oien chased him, jumping fences and crossing streets to Irvington.
DPS Officer Eric Martzke saw Lopez run across Irvington and followed him into Little Mexico Restaurant, 698 W. Irvington Road. Lopez opened the door and calmly sat down next to the salad bar.
Martzke caught up to him, pulled out his Taser stun gun and shouted: "Get down! Don't move!"
"The force in his voice was like - wow," said Jessica Silvas, a cashier who watched, stunned, as Lopez finally surrendered before the officer had to use the weapon.
"Next thing I know, they pick him up and take him out," she said excitedly. "It happened very fast."
Lopez was arrested on suspicion of four counts of endangerment and one count each of criminal damage and unlawful flight from law enforcement.
He told officers he practiced his extreme driving by playing video games, Oien said.
He also said he was trying to smuggle the four male passengers from Mexico. Oien didn't know where the undocumented entrants had come from or where they were headed.
Martzke, a regular at Little Mexico, went back later to apologize to the staff, but Silvas said the arrest made the lunch rush more interesting.
"He said he was sorry for interrupting our business," she said. "But it's not like it was his fault."
Alleged Detainee
Alleged Driver
Add eupehemism to the list; undocumented entrants
When we started building lots of dams and freeways in that region, we pretty much guaranteed that we'd have a huge illegal immigration problem.
One last burrito?
he probably thought the restaurant was like an embassy and he'd have be immune from arrest once inside
"Red Star" and "Soviet Citizen" are the local Tucson crapweasel rags. I usually find sections of them in the men's rooms around town. People know quality toilet paper when they see it.
False identity alert - could his name possibly be more generically Mexican?
smart move, playing the "all Mexicans look the same" card - I guess there weren't any other male customers in the restaurant
juan garcia...manuel sanchez...cheech marin...
bet the video game didn't prepare him too well for that
Me, too.
Boy was I surprised when I got in the car and there was no joystick.
Free-trade, open-borders bump!!!!
1991 caddy. I knew the car was old , most of the new ones quit at 100. The computer shuts them down.
How much did the "undocumented entrants" pay him to get into the U.S.? He should be prosecuted under Federal law (fat chance), and spend a fair amount of time in the Federal pen.
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