City Calls for Meeting on Border Patrol Pursuit Policy

Reacting to complaints from local residents, San Clemente city officials plan to meet with federal immigration authorities to discuss the U.S. Border Patrol’s policy of chasing suspected illegal aliens when they drive onto city streets.

The meeting has been prompted by a Dec. 21 chase that began at the San Clemente Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 5, a few miles south of San Clemente’s city limits. A Border Patrol vehicle chasing a car that had failed to stop at the checkpoint reached speeds approaching 65 m.p.h. on El Camino Real, the city’s main thoroughfare. The chase ended when the car carrying people suspected of being illegal aliens crashed into a palm tree in front of a bank in downtown San Clemente. All seven occupants were seriously injured.

At a meeting Wednesday night, the San Clemente City Council asked Border Patrol Agent Charlie Geer, who commands the San Clemente checkpoint, what could be done to prevent future Border Patrol chases from ending in a similar manner. Geer’s answer: not much. But Councilmen William C. Mecham and Brian J. Rice will ask Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) today to arrange a meeting with immigration officials in the hope that at least better communication and understanding can be achieved, Mecham said.

Calls From Constituents

“This community has gone from outrage at what happened to an anger and now to a point where they’re saying, ‘What are we going to do about it?’ ” Mecham said at Wednesday’s meeting. “We have got to find a solution.”

Council members reported receiving numerous calls and letters about the chase from their constituents.

Councilman Robert D. Limberg echoed Mecham’s view, asking if “the risk to innocent people (is) worth the capture of people who may or may not be illegal aliens?”

Geer, who is also a San Clemente resident, said the agency has a policy of “aggressive hot pursuit” of vehicles carrying people suspected of being illegal aliens or that fail to stop at the checkpoint. “If we don’t pursue, they will not stop,” Geer told the council. “We have no control . . . as to where it’s going to go.”

Any change in the policy would have to come from Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters in Washington, Geer said.

When asked by Mecham to provide the city with a copy of the federal agency’s pursuit policy, however, Geer said the policy was unwritten. “Our policy is understood. It is tough. Apparently it’s by word of mouth.”

“I find that distressing,” Mecham responded.

The San Clemente Police Department has a detailed, six-page policy that spells out how its officers are to proceed when chasing another vehicle. The policy requires that officers obtain approval from a supervisor before chasing any suspects except those suspected of committing violent felonies.

Border Patrol officers are given greater discretion to continue or abandon a chase in which there is some risk to the public, Geer said. “It’s up to the (pursuing) officer,” he said.

Geer presented statistics to the city that showed that of 104 Border Patrol pursuits between July, 1984, and July, 1986, 17 ended on San Clemente city streets. Only one of those 17 resulted in a traffic collision, and no one was injured, according to Geer.

“We’re not running around half-cocked, and we’re not all John Wayne juniors,” Geer said. “We’re the ones standing down there on the high-speed freeway trying to survive from day to day and not get run over.”

To announce that the Border Patrol would not follow suspects onto San Clemente city streets would not only endanger his agents, Geer said, but would be an open invitation for suspects to take refuge in San Clemente.

Councilman Rice, who volunteered to participate in discussions with the Border Patrol, said the dialogue between the city and the federal agency was still “at the rhetorical level. I just hope it’s not going to take a casualty--a Mexican or an American--to make them listen to what’s going on here.”

San Clemente police intend to file charges of felony reckless driving against the driver of the pursued vehicle, identified later as 24-year-old Cornelio Gonzales Ruiz (also known as Arcadio Gonzales)--if they can find him, according to Police Chief Kelson McDaniel. Gonzales was released from Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo on Dec. 23, and his whereabouts are unknown. Detective William Smith said Thursday that he would ask some of the victims who remain hospitalized to provide information that would help locate Gonzales.

Border Patrol spokesman Wayne Kirkpatrick said that even though Border Patrol agents initiated the chase because the driver failed to stop at the checkpoint, it was not necessarily their duty to arrest him.

“The police or Highway Patrol could have arrested him also,” Kirkpatrick said. “We’re not liable to have someone sitting at his (hospital) bedside.”

Kirkpatrick said he was under the impression that Gonzales, “absconded” from the hospital. But Mission Community hospital spokeswoman Jan Walker said he was discharged by a doctor on Dec. 23.

Geer said in reference to Gonzales: “It’s a needle in a haystack. I’m not going to send my people after him.”

Eight years ago, following a similar meeting with San Clemente city officials, the Border Patrol said it would change its pursuit policy to decrease the number of dangerous chases but would not make the changes publicly known. That meeting was arranged following a chase that ended in a crash that killedone person who was believed to be an illegal alien dead and injured five others.

Four of the six passengers involved in the Dec. 21 chase remain in local hospitals: Maria Luisa Robledo, 21, and Alicia Villalpando, 35, were both reported Thursday to be in stable condition at San Clemente General Hospital. At Mission Community Hospital, Jesus Robledo, 66, was in serious condition, and Rafael Alvarez Valencia, 14, in good condition.

One victim, Efrain Rea Diaz, 33, was transferred from San Clemente to a hospital in Tijuana, and another, Sylvia Alvarez, about 30, was released from Mission Community Hospital this week.