Deputies chased car before crash

10 injured in attempt to stop vehicle reported stolen

Deputies were chasing a suspected stolen vehicle Monday morning when the fleeing suspects wrecked at an intersection, damaging at least three vehicles and injuring 10 people, including five who were sent to a hospital.

Spokesmen for the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and Albuquerque Fire and Rescue on Monday refused to say whether the crash involved a police pursuit. But a criminal complaint against a passenger in the stolen car said deputies were chasing the car with their emergency lights and sirens on as the suspects swerved through lanes of traffic before crashing into a passenger vehicle at Broadway and Avenida Cesar Chavez SE.

After Monday’s wreck, the criminal complaint said that a passenger in the stolen vehicle, Oscar Contreras Zamarripa, 32, was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to receive or transfer a stolen vehicle and tampering

with evidence.

Tom Ruiz, a spokesman for Fire and Rescue, said in an email that at least three vehicles were involved in the wreck and that 10 people were injured in the “mass casualty incident.”

The five people taken to a hospital are all expected to survive, he said.

Ruiz didn’t return calls for comment on Tuesday about the status of the people injured in the crash.

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office didn’t return calls for comment on Monday or Tuesday.

The chase started around 9:30 a.m. when a deputy in an unmarked police car on a “proactive patrol” checked a license plate on a Hyundai Sonata near Coors and Iliff NW found that the vehicle had been reported stolen, according to the complaint filed in Metropolitan Court.

The deputy followed the vehicle until marked units arrived and tried to make a traffic stop.

The driver of the Hyundai fled, and deputies shot the car with a StarChase tracking device, which allows deputies to monitor its whereabouts.

Sheriff Manuel Gonzales has said publicly that the devices are intended to mitigate the public’s risk because they allow deputies to slow down and track a suspect instead of getting into a chase.

Deputies chased the stolen vehicle Monday after it was shot with the GPS monitoring device, according to the criminal complaint.

The driver of the stolen vehicle continued on recklessly, running red lights before the crash. Passengers in the car were throwing items out the windows during the pursuit, according to the criminal complaint.

Bernalillo County deputies have been getting into an increasing number of pursuits since the sheriff changed policy last summer to allow more chases of suspects in certain misdemeanor crimes or those who are “flagrantly reckless.” Under the office’s old policy, deputies could chase only suspects in violent felonies.

The number of pursuits by deputies increased from 11 in 2016 to 74 in 2017.

The Albuquerque Police Department, which has a stricter pursuit policy, reported 10 pursuits in 2016 and 12 in 2017, according to Journal reporting.