Alleged drunk driver fleeing Border Patrol blamed for rollover crash that left 1 dead, 3 hurt near downtown El Paso
EL PASO, Texas -- An alleged drunk driver fleeing from Border Patrol agents with a van carrying foreign nationals was being blamed for a rollover crash near downtown El Paso late Wednesday night killed one of his passengers and injured three more.
Police on Friday said the van driver, 35-year-old Daniel Humberto Castillo-Nunez of Chaparral, New Mexico, is being charged with intoxication manslaughter. He was being held in the downtown jail on $1 million bond.
The deadly rollover crash happened a bit before midnight Wednesday in the 400 block of W. Paisano Drive at W. San Antonio Avenue in the Union Plaza area.
Authorities said Border Patrol agents saw a group of Ecuadoran nationals being loaded into the van and Castillo-Nunez sped away in it as the agents approached.
Investigators said Castillo-Nunez lost control of the van at a curve in the road, causing it to rollover and strike a light pole and a tree.
One of the passengers died and three others remain hospitalized. Police said Castillo-Nunez got out of the driver's seat and ran away from the crash scene, but officers captured him at a nearby railroad yard a short time later.
That crash was the city's second traffic death within a few hours on Wednesday night.
The first traffic death of the night had occurred earlier at Pellicano and Bob Hope in east El Paso, where police said a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle and killed.
