Man on life support after vehicle in APD chase crashes
A 23-year-old man is on life support and six others were hospitalized after the driver of a stolen Jeep ran a red light and slammed into a car during a 15-mile-long police pursuit, police say.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, the Jeep was carrying six people, ages 12 to 18, five of whom were injured. At least two have been charged and jailed.
D’Markus Blea, 23, had just been picked up from the bus station by his girlfriend, and they were on their way to his mother’s home sometime after 5 a.m. when the Jeep slammed into their sedan. Police said Blea suffered skull, rib and vertebrae fractures along with other injuries and is “not likely
to survive,” police wrote in a criminal complaint charging Quontez Kuvinka, 18, and Matthew Nieto, 18, in connection with the crash.
Blea had just arrived in Albuquerque, where he planned to care for his mother. A GoFundMe page launched Sunday said Blea was on life support. His girlfriend also sustained extensive injuries, including a broken pelvis, but is expected to survive.
Police say the 18-year-old who was driving the Jeep told detectives that he and a man he didn’t know stole the Jeep the night before. He said he was carrying a knife and the other man was carrying a gun when they asked to borrow the Jeep owner’s phone before demanding his keys.
The Jeep driver suffered a broken femur in the wreck and has not yet been charged.
Two of the Jeep passengers, Kuvinka and Nieto, were booked into jail Sunday, each facing charges of tampering with evidence and conspiracy. Both admitted attempting to wiping their prints off of the interior of the Jeep as police were in pursuit, detectives said in their criminal complaints.
Police spokesman Daren DeAguero said Sunday that officers were posted at a local hospital anticipating taking additional suspects into custody.
Also riding in the Jeep was a 12-yearold boy and two girls, ages 13 and 17. The 13-year-old had called the older teen about 4:30 a.m. to come pick her up from a friend’s house, detectives said. How the 12-year-old boy connected with the group isn’t clear in the complaint.
In statements through an attorney to detectives, the two officers said the carjacked Jeep had been reported stolen from an apartment complex near West Mesa High School on Friday night during an armed robbery, and it had been spotted around 5 a.m. near Coors and Bridge. Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but it fled toward Coors. Police pursued the Jeep onto Interstate 40, and one officer “wrecked his vehicle while following the Jeep.”
The Jeep driver, police said, ran multiple red lights before crashing into Blea’s car at Eubank and Menaul.
It is at least the third serious crash during a police chase so far this year.
In June, a suspect wanted on a felony warrant fled police in an RV. Officers chased the RV across town, using both a helicopter and patrol vehicles. When officers attempted to stop the RV by crashing into it near Coors and Irving, it hit a car carrying 39-year-old Tito Pacheco, who later died.
And in August, Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputies saw a stolen car near Edith and Candelaria and followed it at normal speeds without emergency lights before air support began tracking it. Later, the vehicle crashed into a tow truck and caught fire. Two people riding in the car, Dominic Moya, 22, and Tessi Parker, 19, died at the scene and two more were taken to a local hospital.