Police allege that Ismael Huazo-Jardinez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was drunk when he plowed into a trailer home in Sutter County, California, and killed a mother, father, and their son.
And Huazo-Jardinez likely thought he was going to pull a fast one and skip town after a dim-witted judge released him on bail.
But alas, the habit among jails and judges in California to loose illegal-alien suspects and convicted criminals upon the unsuspecting public didn’t do Huazo-Jardinez much good.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement collared the miscreant before he could run from the law and head for the border.
The Wreck
The end for the mom and dad came on Saturday night, KCRA3 TV reported, when Huazo-Jardinez, who was living in Yuba City, was hurtling down the road in a Chevy Avalanche.
California Highway Patrol told the station that Huzo-Jardinez, 33, traveling “at a high rate of speed,” didn’t slow down for a curve, and so ran off the road and crashed into the trailer where a family was sleeping.
Left dead in the wreckage were Jose and Ana Pacheco, 38 and 34, and Angel, their 10-year-old son. The daughter, Mariana, 11, survived, but landed in the hospital with serious injuries.
The landlord told the station that the Pachecos were a “model family” of “two very hardworking parents” and two “well-behaved kids.” They were, he said, “really good people.”
A witness who quickly arrived at the scene said Huazo-Jardinez was drunk. “As soon as he came out of that vehicle, he was so intoxicated I could smell the alcohol from 10 feet away,” he told KCRA.
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Free as a Bird — Briefly
But then a judge, in all his wisdom, ignored a request for $1 million bond, and instead set it for $300,000. Huazo-Jardinez somehow made bail.
A district attorney told KCRA that Huazo-Jardinez has a prior conviction for reckless driving, and $300,000 is indeed the usual bail on a triple vehicular manslaughter. “It’s probably unusual that a person is able to pay that, at least this quickly,” which does raise the question of how the illegal alien paid the bail.
Neighbors weren’t pleased the judge freed him. “I don’t like it because now he has the option to run,” one told the station. “He has nothing to lose by running.”
“What if he doesn’t come back for his court date?” another asked. “What if he can’t be found to be held accountable? And I think he should be held accountable for the three lives that he took and the little girl who is now an orphan.”
They needn’t worry, Fox40 reported.
ICE caught the Mexican yesterday.
ICE confirmed his illegality and said he voluntarily returned to Mexico eight years ago after he was apprehended then. ICE did not know when he jumped the border again and returned.
Huazo-Jardinez faces arraignment on June 10.
ICE Most Wanted
ICE’s speedy apprehension of the Mexican DUI suspect means the Pacheco family won’t have to wonder, 10 years from now, why he never faced justice.
That isn’t true for many, as the Most Wanted Fugitive list from ICE shows. All the illegals on the list are wanted for killing someone in a crash, and many were drunk at the time. Some on the list were drunk, some fled the scene, and some were in custody but released on bail.
But all have thus far escaped justice.
The death of Sarah Root combines them all: drunk illegal, and the failure of federal and local authorities to deal with him approprately.
The Honduran illegal alien who, police allege, killed Root while driving in a drunken stupor crossed the border illegally in 2013 when he was a 16-year-old “unaccompanied minor.” Though border agents collared Edwin Mejia, they released him to join “family” in Tennessee.
From there, that “family” moved to Nebraska, where a drunken Mejia, blood alcohol content three times the legal limit, police allege, killed Root at a stoplight in South Omaha.
Like the judge in the case of Huazo-Jardinez, a judge in Nebraska freed Mejia on bail.
He disappeared.
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