7 Die as Truck Evading Border Agents Crashes

A stolen pickup truck filled with suspected illegal immigrants careened off a winding mountain road in rural Riverside County on Saturday as it attempted to evade Border Patrol agents, killing seven men and injuring 18 others--one of the worst accidents in the history of California’s troubled southern border, authorities said.

U.S. Border Patrol agents said they had been trailing the vehicle at a safe speed and distance for several miles when it bolted down a steep hill west of Interstate 15 near Temecula, skidded at a sharp curve and flipped into a ditch.

Despite assurances from Border Patrol officials that the truck was not being chased, the tragedy immediately ratcheted up the debate over immigration and border control that was ignited just five days earlier when Riverside County sheriff’s deputies were videotaped beating two illegal immigrants.

Federal officials, including a top Border Patrol administrator, immediately sought to focus blame for the incident on the smugglers who frequently transport migrants from Mexico into Southern California.

“We feel that this is just another case that demonstrates the alien smugglers’ absolute, callous disregard for human life,” said Border Patrol spokesman Jim Pilkington. “Over and over again, alien smugglers place unsuspecting, undocumented migrants in extremely hazardous situations. . . . Money, to the smugglers, is more important than the safety and well-being of the human cargo.”

But state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), interviewed at a mass pro-immigrant rally Saturday outside Los Angeles City Hall, called for a wider range of immigration control measures, saying: “The exclusively militaristic approach is creating a lot of collateral carnage.”

In Mexico, the incident topped newscasts and prompted outrage, with one reporter deriding the alleged excesses of U.S. authorities. “These people, shielded by the [law enforcement] uniform . . . are committing every type of irregularity,” he said. Mexican government officials reacted with more restraint, merely asking for an exhaustive investigation.

The crash victims, all men, were taken to five hospitals and clinics in the Inland Empire and Orange County.

After treatment, five were released to Border Patrol officials by midday. But 13 more remained hospitalized late in the day, two with broken necks and one with a broken back. One of the men with a spinal fracture apparently sustained permanent paralysis to all four limbs, a hospital official said.

Saturday’s accident occurred not far from the starting point of Monday’s police pursuit, which culminated in the beating of the Mexican immigrants.

The region is crisscrossed by back country roads that smugglers have used for years to transport Mexican and Central American immigrants around an immigration checkpoint on Interstate 15 in nearby Temecula.

“This valley is a web of roads that they try to use to avoid us,” one border patrolman said Saturday. “Every night they try it. Every night we are out there trying to find them.”

Border Patrol agents were sitting along Sandia Creek Drive near Fallbrook at about dawn Saturday when they spotted a 1989 GMC pickup with a camper shell, said the chief of the patrol’s San Diego sector, Johnny Williams. They followed at a distance, without siren or lights in the darkness, while running a check on the truck’s Hawaii license plate. The report came back to the agents that the blue pickup had been stolen in mid-February in the San Diego County community of Spring Valley, authorities said.

When the truck reached Temecula, several miles away--where smugglers normally would turn east to rejoin Interstate 15--it instead turned west onto Avenida del Oro and sped up quickly as it went downhill. By the time the Border Patrol unit crested the hill, all an agent saw was a cloud of dust and 150-foot skid marks where the pickup failed to negotiate a sharp turn, said the Border Patrol’s Pilkington.

Later in the day, Williams insisted the Border Patrol unit had not been chasing the immigrants. “This was not a chase. There were no lights, no sirens, nothing of that sort,” he said, although he also said the agency is investigating the possibility that at least one of the passengers threw objects from the truck.

The Border Patrol stopped chasing immigrants in 1992 after a pursuit involving immigrants ended with six people dead near a Temecula school.

In Saturday’s crash, the camper shell split in two on impact, throwing many of the occupants free. Most of the dead were trapped underneath the truck. Paramedics arrived within 15 minutes to find some victims staggering away and a lone man crying, but otherwise an eerie silence.

“People were everywhere, all over the bank, sticking out of the truck every which way, hanging out of windows,” said John Winder, an official with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention.

A short time later, one man was found hiding in an adjacent avocado grove despite serious injuries.

“This guy was legitimately hurt,” said a firefighter who found the man. “But they fear authority.”

Riverside County Fire Department Capt. Tom Drayer quickly radioed for help from all available agencies. Units from the forestry department and Border Patrol assisted in the rescue, shipping the injured to several local hospitals.

The truck had to be lifted off the ground with lumber blocks and an inflatable hoist to free all the dead--a painstaking process that took until nearly midday and left rescuers exhausted in the 90-degree heat.

“This is the most intricate rescue I have ever seen,” said Drayer. “It was gruesome. It was difficult to deal with. But we had a job to do and we did it.”

Corpses were wrapped in plastic sheeting and laid side by side on a giant orange tarp.

The bloody scene was in stark contrast to the surroundings, where avocado groves, ranch-style homes and views of the distant Pacific Ocean are emblematic of the California good life. The area is popular with retired executives and gentleman farmers; former residents include baseball great Duke Snider and actor Martin Milner.

Authorities said the U.S. crackdown on illegal breaches of the Mexican border had resulted in a backlash of increasingly wanton behavior by coyotes, the smugglers who charge migrants to transport them north.

Since January, a special $13-million effort on the California and Arizona borders with Mexico has beefed up enforcement so much that smugglers have hiked their fees from about $300 to $600 or more per person.

Alan Bersin, the U.S. attorney in San Diego who also serves as President Clinton’s border czar, said “the results of stepped-up, effective Border Patrol enforcement have led the smugglers to a standard operating procedure of reckless endangerment, violation of civil rights of their passengers and circumstances like this homicide.”

Before Saturday’s accident, seven immigrants had died this year traveling north, including two who succumbed to hypothermia in the rugged Otay Mountains after being abandoned by smugglers, Bersin said.

The federal prosecutor has given new emphasis to apprehending the smugglers, whom he called “public enemies to the safety and security of this region.”

The emotional debate about how to treat illegal immigrants was intensified by the crash.

Some pro-immigrant activists, while saying they did not have enough information to judge the Temecula tragedy, nonetheless said they have lost faith that authorities will respond with restraint.

At the other end of the spectrum, Ron Prince, who co-chaired the campaign for Proposition 187, which limited government benefits for undocumented immigrants, said such tragedies will continue until the border is blocked, perhaps by the military.

Hospital officials identified five of the men who were treated and released to the Border Patrol: Jesus Delgado, 33; Celso Sanchez, 19; Victor Carpio; Alfonso Erbert and Juan de la Rosa.

Ignacio Reyes Gonzalez, 21, was admitted to Inland Valley Regional Medical Center in Wildomar, in fair condition with internal injuries. Reyes told people there that he was from the Mexican state of Jalisco, that he had crossed the border illegally and was headed to Los Angeles seeking work, said a hospital source speaking on condition of anonymity.

The rest of the injured were spread among four other hospitals--Riverside General Hospital, Menifee Medical Center in Sun City, Sharp HealthCare in Murietta and Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo.

Mexico’s Secretary of Exterior Relations issued a short statement asking several consulates in Southern California to interview the survivors and offer them all the support they need. The consular officials were also asked to aid in identifying the dead.

Perry and Meyer reported from Temecula and Weinstein from Los Angeles. Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Mary Beth Sheridan in Mexico City, and Fred Alvarez, James Rainey and Jodi Wilgoren, all in Los Angeles.