3 Injured by Border Patrol Van; Hit-Run Victim Found

In what authorities are calling an accident, a U.S. Border Patrol van driving on a rough path near the U.S.-Mexico boundary line in San Diego ran over three undocumented immigrants asleep in some brush shortly before sunrise Sunday, injuring two of them seriously.

Shortly after that accident--and within 500 yards--a Border Patrol officer found the body of a Mexican man who had apparently been run over by a hit-and-run driver.

Police investigators have determined that the running over of the three sleeping aliens was “totally accidental,” said Bill Robinson, a police spokesman. But police have not ruled out a link between the two accidents.

The fatal case is considered a hit and run and is still under investigation, although there are no suspects, Robinson said. Tire tracks were evident at the scene, according to a spokesman for the San Diego County coroner’s office. A broken headlight was also reportedly found near the body.

The two accidents occurred no more than 500 yards apart, within a quarter-mile of the border, but they took place on different sides of the Tijuana River, according to Ed Pyeatt, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol. The first accident took place at about 5:15 a.m. and the body was found about 6 a.m., authorities said.

The incidents are the latest in a series of border-area traffic accidents, some of them involving Border Patrol vehicles, in which pedestrians have been seriously injured or killed while attempting to enter the United States illegally. Earlier this month, a 27-year-old Mexican national was killed in the Otay Mesa area, east of the port of entry at San Ysidro, when a Border Patrol vehicle struck him.

Since Jan. 1, there have been more than a dozen serious accidents in which vehicles have struck aliens seeking to enter the United States illegally along the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, according to Robinson. About a third of those were classified as hit and run cases, the police spokesman said.

In the past, critics have charged that Border Patrol driving techniques contribute to traffic casualties along the border. But Border Patrol officials insist that agents do all they can to avoid injuring pedestrians.

“We stress safety to individuals first,” said Pyeatt, the Border Patrol spokesman.

He attributed the recent high number of traffic accidents to the rapidly rising numbers of aliens crossing the border illegally. Authorities expect that apprehensions of illegal aliens in March will set yet another one-month record.

Many aliens seek to elude capture by proceeding on foot at nightfall on back-country trails and rough roads. But those same routes are heavily patrolled by U.S. border agents in vehicles.

Also, Pyeatt noted that recent rains had resulted in heavy grasses and thicker shrubbery in the arid border area. The additional cover makes it more difficult for agents to see aliens seeking to elude arrest, Pyeatt said.

In the fatal accident, a spokesman for the San Diego coroner’s office identified the victim as Gabriel Hernandez Lozano, a 49-year-old resident of Tijuana. His body was found at about 6 a.m. in a field northwest of the intersection of Tia Juana Street and Willow Road. Police believe he had been run over at the scene and found tire tracks on his back, Robinson said.

The accident involving the three aliens occurred shortly before dawn in the area just west of the port of entry at San Ysidro, according to an account provided by Robinson, the police spokesman.

A Border Patrol agent, Emilio Rodolfo Medellin Jr., 36, was driving his four-wheel-drive van along a rough path, pursuing a group of suspected aliens who were heading back toward Mexico, Robinson said. Along the way, Robinson said, the Border Patrol vehicle ran over three other aliens who had been sleeping in the brush, apparently unseen by the agent. Medellin was using his van’s lights in the pre-dawn darkness, Robinson said.

Authorities said agent Medellin quickly called for help.

Border Patrol authorities will investigate the accident, as is routine, Pyeatt said.

Two of the victims were taken by Life Flight helicopter to UC San Diego Medical Center. One, whose name was not available, was listed in serious condition, while the other, Jose Ramirez Perez, 19, of the Mexican state of Guanajuato, was in fair condition.

Authorities said that another victim, Fausto Garcia Lopez, 26, of Mexico City, was treated at Bay Hospital Medical Center in Chula Vista and released.