El Paso Police charge alleged wrong-way driver in traffic fatality from mid-November
Jan. 17, 2014 Update: El Paso Police have arrested and charged Larry Phillip Otero in the Nov. 14, 2013 wrong-way traffic collision that killed a 29-year-old man.
Otero has been charged with one count of intoxication manslaughter and was booked into the El Paso County Jail shortly after 2 p.m. Jan. 17, 2014. His bond is $50,000.
Read below for past updates related to this story.
Dec. 9, 2013 Update: El Paso Police have released the May 25, 2013 booking photo of Larry Phillip Otero to ABC-7 when he was arrested and charged with DWI.
A police report obtained by ABC-7 on Dec. 6 named the 49-year-old as the wrong-way driver in a fatal crash that killed Gabriel Morales on Nov. 14, 2013.
Otero has not been charged in the traffic fatality at this time but police have previously said that charges are pending.
For more on the incident and previous reports, read below.
Dec. 6, 2013 Update: A police report obtained by ABC-7 names the suspected wrong-way driver in a fatal crash on Nov. 14, 2013 as 49-year-old Larry Phillip Otero.
Otero, who is in the hospital in stable condition, has not been charged in the traffic fatality at this time.
Court records show that Otero was arrested and charged with DWI on May, 25 2013 with a blood alcohol content of .15 — almost twice the legal limit in Texas — in a separate case. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the May DWI case on Dec. 16.
He also has been charged with Assault Family Violence from a May 24, 2013 incident.
A previous charge of DWI in 2004 was dismissed.
The accident report for the Nov. crash states Otero was allegedly driving the wrong way on I-10 East at Zaragoza early the morning of Nov. 14, 2013 when he struck a car being driven by 29-year-old Gabriel Morales.
Several times since the accident the El Paso Police have declined to release the wrong-way driver’s name when asked by ABC-7 to do so, saying it was because he had not been charged. The police department has declined to release Otero’s previous mugshots saying they could be used in a photo lineup.
A mid-November news release by police stated criminal charges were pending in the wrong-way traffic fatality case.
Afternoon Nov. 14, 2013 Update: El Paso Police have identified the man killed early Thursday morning when his car was struck by a man driving the wrong way on I-10 East at Zaragoza.
Gabriel Morales, 29, of the 14600 block of Santiesteban, was driving a Mazda East on I-10 when a 49-year-old man driving a 2004 Mercedes Benz westbound on the eastbound lanes of I-10 struck his vehicle head on.
Police have not released the name of the 49-year-old man who was taken to a hospital with serious injuries. Criminal Charges are pending.
Early Nov. 14, 2013 Story: I-10 East at Zaragoza was shut down after a deadly wrong-way collision early Thursday morning.
The incident happened at around 2:20 a.m.
Police say a vehicle was going the wrong way on I-10 eastbound near Zaragoza when that vehicle struck another driver, killing him.
El Paso Police say the driver going the wrong way suffered serious injuries, but that alcohol may be a factor in the crash.
