ICE has confirmed that the man accused of driving the vehicle that recently caused the death of a Washington state trooper is in the United States illegally.
Around 3 a.m. Saturday, 27-year-old Officer Christopher Gadd of the Washington State Patrol was sitting in his patrol car parked on the shoulder of southbound Interstate 5 near Marysville, Washington, about 40 miles north of Seattle. , I was thinking of the following.I’m going out for Speeding and drunk drivers. Suddenly, an SUV, traveling at high speed and probably without its lights on, barrels along the shoulder of the road and hits Gadd’s police car from behind.
The SUV then spun and came to rest in the far left lane. At that moment, another car with six people on board collided with it. The driver of the third vehicle suffered serious injuries including a broken wrist, but fortunately the other occupants of the vehicle were uninjured.
Unfortunately, Officer Gadd was not so lucky. When officers arrived, he was still in the patrol car. The circumstances of his injuries were not disclosed, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Alex Assadi witnessed the crash and tried to help. “I called out to him a few times but he didn’t respond to me and I was watching his stomach move and there was nothing,” he said. . KCPQ-TV. “His right hand was near the window, so I reached over and checked his pulse.”
“It is with great sadness that we announce the loss of a brother today,” said WSP spokesperson Chris Loftis. “Soldiers register for danger. They are brave people.”
Gad He leaves behind a wife and two-year-old daughter. He had only been in the military for two years when he died.
The driver of the SUV, 32-year-old Raul Benitez Santana, was immediately arrested and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment of undisclosed minor injuries.Since then he has been booked Snohomish County Jail He was charged with one count of vehicular homicide and one count of vehicular assault. His bail is set at $1 million.
At the preliminary hearing, his attorney argued that the accident was a tragic accident and that Benitez-Santana could not see Gadd’s car because the lights were not on. However, one witness claimed the suspect was driving at “full speed” on the shoulder, and prosecutors argued the suspect treated the shoulder as a lane.
A breathalyzer test taken hours after the crash showed Benitez-Santana’s blood alcohol level was below the legal limit of 0.08, but police said his eyes were bloodshot that night and he had been drinking marijuana. He admitted to smoking cigarettes and drinking two beers around 9 p.m. before nightfall.
After word of the fatal crash became public, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it had taken into custody Benitez Santana, a Mexican national who is in the United States illegally.
ICE has not said when he entered our country, but he has been here for more than a decade, as evidenced by his multiple encounters with law enforcement. Back in 2013, he was the subject of surveillance by Operation Seattle Enforcement, a division of ICE, and was ticketed for driving nearly 50 miles per hour over the speed limit and charged with driving with a suspended license and marijuana possession. Convicted. , and he did not appear in court. He was also arrested in 2019 for domestic violence, but it is unclear whether he was convicted.
“As one of the operating offices associated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ERO Seattle is committed to assisting noncitizens arrested for criminal activity and detained by state or local law enforcement agencies,” an ERO spokesperson said in a statement. “We are claiming immigration detainees.” “Immigrant detainees are detainees who are required to notify ICE as soon as possible before a deportable non-citizen is released to allow ERO to assume custody for possible deportation of the subject to his or her home country in accordance with federal law. This is a request from ICE to state or local law enforcement agencies.”
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