Wife Of Mexican Air Force Officer Arrested In Fatal Hit-And-Run
POSTED: 5:47 am MST December 5, 2007
UPDATED: 2:07 pm MST December 5, 2007
AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Troopers have arrested the wife of a Mexican air force officer after a hit-and-run that killed a civilian Air Force Academy employee, the Colorado State Patrol said Tuesday.
Veronica Prieto-Gudino, 30, was arrested Monday on suspicion of careless driving causing death and failure to report an accident involving death, Sgt. Rick Hoffmann confirmed.
She was booked into the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center and freed on $3,000 bond, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said.
Officers called the U.S. Justice Department to confirm that Prieto-Gudino, a Mexican citizen, did not have diplomatic immunity, Hoffmann said. A phone number for her could not be found.
Donna Head, 65, of Monument, was struck around 9 a.m. Monday in a parking lot near the academy’s community center.
Officials closed both the north and the south entrance gates to the base while authorities searched for the driver and eventually found the vehicle suspected of hitting Head.
However, the driver was not inside.
Medical aid, including an air ambulance, was called to the scene, but the woman was already dead by the time paramedics arrived
Head was the flight chief for the academy’s family program, meaning she oversaw all child programs for the academy. Her husband, Air Force Brig. Gen. James Head, retired two years ago as a physics professor and vice dean of faculty at the academy, The Gazette reported.
She has worked at the academy since 1991.
Prieto-Gudino is married to a Mexican officer working at the academy as a language instructor through a military exchange program, an Air Force Academy source told the newspaper.
Finally... my wife works there, walks a good distance from her car to her facility and could easily have been the person hit. This woman, Mexican citizen or not, has no business being release on a mere $3000 bond.
They didn’t look at a “run risk” here????????????
“Wherever there are Mexicans, there is Mexico.”
We had a hit-and-run by a Mexican national here. One of my friend’s acted as her interpreter. She explained that she left the scene because she needed to have her husband handle everything. That’s how they do things down there. The fact she never came forward is completely separate. In that culture, the wife of a prominent man would allow her husband to “fix” the problem.