2 Killed as Van, Border Patrol Vehicle Collide

In the third dramatic incident this month involving a vehicle crammed with illegal immigrants, a suspected smuggler’s van collided with a Border Patrol van Friday and careened off Interstate 8, killing two occupants and injuring 19 others.

The 1979 Dodge van, with about 25 people inside, was ordered by Border Patrol agents to pull off the mountainous stretch of Interstate 8 about 30 miles east of San Diego. But the driver swerved into the agents’ van, according to officials, sending both vehicles over the freeway embankment.

The immigrants’ van flipped into the air and rolled several times as its occupants were flung through doors and the windshield along the rocky embankment.

Whether the driver had intentionally swerved into the Border Patrol van in an effort to evade capture has not been determined.

The crash scene “was like something out of Vietnam,” said Caltrans worker Mark Ross, a combat veteran of that war. “There were helos [hospital helicopters] on the ground loading injured and helos in the air waiting for space to land. There were bodies everywhere.”

Border Patrol officials blamed the van driver for the crash because he refused to pull over and submit to arrest. And they said it is another sign that smugglers are becoming increasingly reckless in their efforts to thwart a beefed-up Border Patrol.

“This is another example of the callousness and disregard for human life on the part of the smugglers of illegal immigrants,” said Border Patrol spokesman Jim Pilkington. “They’re desperate and doing desperate things.”

“This was no chase. There was no pursuit” by agents, Pilkington said.

But the Border Patrol--which banned high-speed chases after a deadly crash in 1992--quickly came under criticism from immigrants rights advocates, who questioned the agents’ account of the incident and accused them of provoking the crash.

Friday’s crash followed two incidents that have garnered international notoriety and inflamed the debate over illegal immigration.

On April 1, two illegal immigrants were beaten with batons by two Riverside County sheriff’s deputies in South El Monte, after an 80-mile chase initiated when the pickup was spotted by Border Patrol agents.

Five days later, a truck crammed with illegal immigrants crashed at high speed in the woodsy terrain near Temecula in southern Riverside County, killing eight immigrants and injuring 17. In that case, Border Patrol officials said the smuggler’s truck was being trailed, but not chased, by agents.

Friday’s collision occurred as a Border Patrol van and the immigrants’ van traveled side by side west along I-8 at about 65 mph through this mountainous community.

Pilkington said the Border Patrol had received a tip from a citizen that a smugglers’ “load vehicle” was on I-8.

He said the Border Patrol van, when it received the dispatcher’s message to watch for a brown van, was either driving on the freeway or parked on the shoulder or median looking for smuggler vehicles. The latter is a technique used by the Border Patrol to catch smugglers who have eluded the I-8 checkpoint 15 miles east of Alpine by using side roads.

After the collision with the Border Patrol vehicle, the Dodge van hit a small asphalt berm at the right side of the freeway, flipped and rolled over as it tumbled over the sandy, rocky embankment and came to rest on its side about 100 feet from the freeway.

The incident took place at what is called the Tavern Road grade, which slopes sharply downward for westbound traffic.

“Some of the people were just laying there, others were asking for help,” said Francis Lopez, an Alpine resident who was crossing the freeway on an overpass. “Some were running for the hills.”

One of the injured got about 100 yards from the scene before collapsing, unable to run any farther. He waved at a television helicopter circling overhead in an apparent effort to get medical assistance.

The Border Patrol van, which did not roll over, stopped when it hit a pine tree about 100 feet west of the brown Dodge. Neither agent was injured.

The injured immigrants--mostly men but including at least one child--were taken to area hospitals by ambulances and helicopters. Six of the 19 were listed as critical. The westbound portion of the freeway was closed for more than three hours after the 10:45 a.m. crash.

Officials said two to five suspected illegal immigrants fled the crash scene and eluded capture. The number of occupants inside the aging van was put at between 23 and 26, pushing it far beyond its load capacity and making it unstable at high speeds, officials said.

The Border Patrol van had dents and scraped brown paint near the rear wheel on the passengers’ side. The freeway Friday showed several hundred feet of fresh skid marks leading to the crumpled Dodge van, which was registered to an Oceanside address and had not been reported stolen.

Art Athans, a California Highway Patrol spokesman, said the two agents told CHP investigators that the Dodge van’s driver slammed on his brakes “for reasons that remain unknown” and rammed into the rear of their vehicle. The Border Patrol van was in the left lane, the Dodge van in the right, on a stretch of I-8 that is only two lanes wide in either direction.

Representatives of the Mexican Consulate in San Diego went to the six hospitals where the injured were taken to interview them.

“Right now, we only have the Border Patrol version of events,” said consulate spokeswoman Lourdes Sandoval. “We’re still working the case. Many of those injured were given sedatives, so it has been difficult to get a clear picture of what happened.”

Ana Cobian, spokeswoman for U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin, said the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General also will probe the crash. Such reviews are standard whenever there is a death involving the Border Patrol, Cobian said.

“We have to remember who the villains are here,” Cobian said. “The villains are the smugglers who are endangering the lives of the people they claim to be helping.”

Using a number of legal tactics, Bersin’s office has stepped up prosecutions of suspected smugglers of illegal immigrants. A 1994 crime bill allows penalties of up to life in prison for a smuggler involved in an incident where someone dies.

Investigators were unsure whether the driver of the van was one of those killed or among those who were injured or escaped.

Among other things, investigators are attempting to determine what route the suspected smuggling van used to get onto I-8 and avoid the checkpoint.

The crash immediately reignited the debate about illegal immigration and what should be done to deter it.

Rep. Ron Packard (R-Oceanside) called a radio talk show to say the incident shows that the Border Patrol needs even more resources to stop smugglers at the border and that the Mexican government should assist the U.S. effort to stop illegal immigration.

“We need cooperation from Mexico and we haven’t gotten it,” Packard told conservative talk show host Roger Hedgecock. Hedgecock, a former San Diego mayor, is vehement that the Mexican government bears responsibility for the smuggling of illegal immigrants.

At the other end of the spectrum, the head of a San Diego-based immigrant rights organization contended that the Border Patrol had provoked Friday’s crash.

“I cannot believe what the Border Patrol says,” said Roberto Martinez, director of the American Friends Service Committee. “I have no doubt in my mind that this [incident] was initiated by the Border Patrol as a high-speed chase, and that he [the suspect van’s driver] panicked.”

Even if the two vehicles were traveling at or less than the speed limit, Martinez said it seemed obvious that the agents had to accelerate to reach the suspect van. “They had to initiate some kind of chase to get to that point,” Martinez said.

But Pilkington said the incident fits within the agency’s guidelines on pursuits. Pulling alongside another vehicle on the freeway while remaining at or below the speed limit is permissible, he said.

Initially, a third vehicle was in front of the Border Patrol van and parallel to the Dodge van, Pilkington said. The agents turned on their red lights so that that vehicle would move aside.

The third vehicle’s driver sped up to make way for the Border Patrol van and then kept moving, apparently unaware of what had happened, investigators said.

Pilkington said that Border Patrol guidelines call for agents to pull back if they sense that a vehicle under suspicion is exceeding the speed limit or endangering lives, but that neither condition was present Friday.

The Border Patrol adopted its policy restricting high-speed pursuits in 1992 after six people, including four teenage students, were killed when a truck driven by a fleeing smuggler collided with a car in Temecula.

Times staff writer Tom Gorman contributed to this story from Riverside.