Family Of Spur 601 Hit-And-Run Victim Speaks To ABC-7
The man who was hit and left on the side of the road Saturday morning was an Iraq war veteran and had been married for four years.
The family of Richard Lopez, 26, sat down with ABC-7 late Monday night to talk about the man whose mother described as caring, funny and loving.
“My daughter told me, ‘Mom, mom, sit down,’ but she started screaming,” said Magdalena Moreno Stockton, reliving the moment she learned her son was dead. “I started getting a panic attack.”
Stockton sifted through old pictures of Lopez as a baby, wearing army fatigues and on a vacation in Hawaii with her daughter-in-law, Amanda Lopez, her son’s wife of four years. Amanda Lopez told ABC-7 their relationship spanned almost half their lifetime, beginning when she was 14 years old.
“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t feel my hands,” Lopez said, recounting how she felt when she heard of her husband’s death. “It was a really ugly feeling.”
Lopez was killed Saturday morning as he changed a tire on Spur 601 in Northeast El Paso. Police confirmed with ABC-7 that Lopez was not pulled over entirely to the right shoulder of the road when he was struck, allegedly by El Paso County Sheriff’s Department deputy Raymundo Carranza, 45. Police said Carranza fled the scene, only to return two hours later. He was arrested by police on the scene and charged with accident involving injury or death. Sheriff Richard Wiles announced Monday afternoon that Carranza resigned from the department.
The news of Carranza’s arrest and resignation does little to ease the family’s pain.
“I cannot believe that being in the position that he is in, he left my husband on the side of the road for death,” Lopez said. “Who knows if in the time he left, he could have made a difference (and) rendered aid the way he’s been trained to do and sworn by duty to do. It’s just unbelievable, and I’m still in shock.”
The crash is still under investigation. ABC-7 is awaiting toxicology reports to determine if Carranza was intoxicated at the time of the wreck.
