Las Cruces mom charged with child abuse after rock wall crash that hurt daughter

UPDATE, Mar. 1: The driver whose speeding car crashed into a rock wall last month in Las Cruces, injuring herself and her 11-year-old daughter, has been charged by police with child abuse.

Police said Monday that Tuyet Anh Bai Ta, 31, is charged with a first-degree felony count of child abuse and a misdemeanor count of careless driving.

She also faces motor vehicle violations of driving without proper insurance, driving with no registration, no child passenger restraint and driving without use of a safety belt.

The mother and daughter have both been released from the hospital. That's when police said mom was booked on the charges before being freed on her own recognizance.

Investigators on Monday said they found "no evidence of breaking" in the moments leading to the crash and "believe the vehicle continued to accelerate until it struck the rock wall at 4601 Helia Avenue."

ORIGINAL REPORT, Feb. 22: LAS CRUCES, New Mexico -- A car thought to be speeding crashed into a rock wall along a Las Cruces street early Monday morning, critically injuring a mother and also hospitalizing her young daughter.

Police said it happened about 12:45 a.m. in the 4600 block of Helia Avenue. Officers at the scene said they found the car in the backyard of a home after it crashed through the rock wall.

The 31-year-old woman driving the car was trapped inside and had to be extricated, police said. She was flown to University Medical Center of El Paso unconscious and in critical condition with multiple life-threatening injuries, authorities indicated.

The woman's 11-year-old daughter was hospitalized at Mountainview Regional Medical Center in Las Cruces with a broken leg from the crash.

The names of the pair weren't released by police.

Investigators said they believe the car was speeding along Sonoma Ranch Boulevard when it veered to the other side of the road and potentially into oncoming traffic; a police report said the vehicle then "left the roadway and (went) through several vacant lots before it crashed through a rock wall" and came to a halt in the backyard of the home on Helia Avenue.

Flying rocks and debris from the struck wall hit the home causing some minor exterior damage, police said.