Dead man driving… across the border

It’s us border dwellers that have to put up with the fall-out from the narcotic trade. It sounds like either Colorado “ahem”… agricultural produce exporters… ran into some difficulties with the suppliers, or the suppliers are trying out a novel way of sending goods across the border. Either way… yuck!

(Louie Gillot, El Paso Times)

A shot-up car with a dead man in the driver seat raced to through the Columbus, N.M., port of entry this morning, the second such violent episode in the area in less than a month, Customs and Border Protection officials said.

The incident started in Downtown Palomas, Columbus’ sister city in Mexico, when a gunman opened fire on a red Suburban that was pulling up to a restaurant, Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos said.

CBP officers heard automatic gun fire at about 9:30 a.m. and a few minutes later saw the SUV with Colorado plates, riddled with bullets, careening toward the port of entry, seeking protection.

The driver, José Carreon, 43, was dead, his facial structure destroyed by the bullets. The front seat passenger, Nestor Acosta Saenz, 41, had been reaching over the body to drive and steer, officials said.

A third passenger, Jose Guerrero Peña, 46, was dead, and a fourth, José Joaquin Saenz, 50, was hit in the leg and transported to Thomason Hospital in El Paso, Cobos said.

…

Based on the investigation of the wreck and an interview of the uninjured survivor, Sheriff Cobos pieced together what happened in Palomas this morning.

“It appeared that the gunman was shooting at the windshield and along the driver side with an assault rifle. When the shooting started, the front passenger crawled over to the back, trying to get away from the bullets,” Cobos said.

That man was fatally wounded. A back seat passenger crawled to the front and drove the vehicle to the port of entry over the corpse of the driver.

“Nobody seems to want to tell us anything about the gunman,” Cobos said.

Uh…he’s dead, Jim.