Agents, Suspect in High-Speed Chase Through San Clemente

A suspected smuggler who led U. S. Border Patrol agents on a high-speed chase along Interstate 5 and into San Clemente was arrested early Tuesday when he ditched his stolen car and ran into the ocean.

A Border Patrol agent and a San Clemente police officer followed Abram Baldano Conte, 20, a suspected illegal alien from Puebla, Mexico, into the surf near the San Clemente Pier and wrestled him into submission, said Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Michael Nicley.

Before he was caught, Conte led two Border Patrol cars on a 10-mile chase from the San Clemente checkpoint north on Interstate 5 onto winding, residential streets in San Clemente, Nicley said.

He said Conte traveled “in excess of 100 m.p.h.” on the freeway but continued at a “substantially slower” pace once he reached San Clemente. Another Border Patrol spokesman, Wayne Kirkpatrick, estimated that Conte and his pursuers may have traveled at up to 70 m.p.h within the San Clemente city limits.

Border Patrol chases have become a controversial issue in San Clemente recently, especially since last December when a Border Patrol car chased a carload of suspected illegal aliens through downtown and into a palm tree. All seven of the suspected illegal aliens were seriously injured.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) has been seeking funds to move the I-5 border checkpoint about 10 miles farther south in hopes of reducing the number of chases ending in San Clemente.

Packard also has been pressing for a more clearly defined Border Patrol policy on pursuits, but the issue has not been resolved.

Tuesday’s chase began at 4:30 a.m. when the suspect stopped briefly at the Border Patrol checkpoint on Camp Pendleton and was asked to move to a secondary inspection area. Instead, “he fled,” Nicley said.

Two Border Patrol cars chased him through light traffic along the freeway. They followed when he left the freeway at Magdalena Avenue and took a winding route through side streets in San Clemente and toward the city pier, Nicley said.

At some point during the wild ride, agents determined that the car they were chasing, an orange 1973 Datsun Z, had been reported stolen, Nicley said.

In San Clemente, city police officers monitored the car chase but did not join it, Sgt. Craig Hammer said.

In a residential neighborhood just north of the San Clemente Pier, Conte “jumped out of his car, leaving it running, and it rolled into a tree,” Hammer said.

Conte ran down to Linda Lane Beach and into the surf, where the chase ended. Splashing behind him through the waves were Border Patrol Agent Marty Trevino and San Clemente Police Officer Brian Kummer, who was nearby when the car chase ended. Together they tackled Conte, and Trevino arrested him.

Conte was being held Tuesday at the Border Patrol’s detention facility in Chula Vista on suspicion of alien smuggling and resisting arrest, Nicley said. He is expected to be arraigned before a federal magistrate in San Diego today, Kirkpatrick said.

Conte’s passenger, Jose Chavez Martinez, 21, a suspected illegal alien from Jalisco, Mexico, who was believed to have paid Conte for his ride, was being held as a material witness, Nicley said.

No one was injured in the pursuit, and the stolen car was returned undamaged to its San Diego owner Tuesday afternoon, Nicley said.