EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A federal magistrate judge has set a trial date hearing for two men who allegedly sped away from a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint last month in San Diego, nearly striking a border agent during their flight.
Javier Gilberto Lozano and Usiel Alberto Moreno Hernandez on May 21 allegedly disregarded an agent’s command to stop. They sped off in a gray Nissan Versa past the Brown Field Border Patrol checkpoint on State Route 94.
Court documents show Department of Defense personnel operating a mobile surveillance camera saw migrants come out of the brush near the Mexican border and get in the Versa. The military relayed the information to the Border Patrol as the vehicle drove away from the border.
When the Versa driven by Lozano failed to heed the agent’s command to stop at the checkpoint, a second agent deployed a vehicle immobilization device in front of the vehicle. Investigators allege Lozano “swerved and accelerated” toward the agent, who “was able to narrowly get out of its path.”
Border Patrol vehicles pursued the speeding Versa until it came to a stop due to damage inflicted by the immobilization device.
Lozano and Hernandez were taken into custody along with a material witness who told border agents the two suspects “yelled for them to get into the vehicle” and instructed them to lay down, court documents show.
This is a map of immigration checkpoints in the San Diego Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol. (Graphic courtesy Office of the Inspector General)
The suspects appeared at a hearing last Tuesday in San Diego before U.S. Magistrate Judge David D. Leshner. They pleaded not guilty to charges of transportation of illegal aliens and unlawful high-speed flight from an immigration checkpoint, court records show.
The defendants waived indictment and are scheduled to appear at a trial-setting hearing July 15 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.
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