Then another vehicle tried running a deputy off the road…
Back on September 16 in Arizona, a Pinal County Sheriff’s Deputy tried stopping a Dodge Charger which was driving erratically on I-10 near Casa Grande. The deputy was unable to catch the speeding Charger, thanks in part to a Hyundai which tried running the law enforcement agent off the road twice. Unable to catch the Dodge, the sheriff’s department instead chased the Hyundai, which tried running over deputies who were setting up Stop Sticks on the interstate.
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Finally, Stop Sticks deployed at I-10 and State Route 202 in Maricopa County were successful. The driver of the Hyundai, 19-year-old Alma Rodriguez Dominguez, eventually got off the highway all the way into Phoenix and had to stop the crippled vehicle at 7th St. and Osborn, then was taken into custody. To the surprise of law enforcement, in the car were two suspect illegal aliens as well as the driver’s 18 month-old and 5 month-old children. Thankfully, the two babies weren’t hurt.
While Dominguez isn’t a US citizen, she is in the country legally. She was booked into the Pinal County Jail for aggravated assault, unlawful flight, endangerment, and child abuse. The children were taken into custody by DCS, while ICE took the two illegal aliens into custody.
According to Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, smugglers coming from Mexico often run with two cars in tandem, just like this Dodge and Hyundai. He says sometimes they keep drugs in one vehicle and people in another, but other times they’re smuggling people in both. Sometimes they even use one car purely as a decoy, drawing law enforcement from the goods transported in the other.
Sheriff Lamb says the problem of human and drug smuggling is something his department and counties across the Mexican border deal with daily. According to him, the drug cartels are recruiting youth and others to go down to the Mexico, pick up illegals, and transport them to Phoenix, paying between $1,000 and $2,000 per head.
Images via Pinal County Sheriff's Office
