Routine traffic stop results in chase, two arrests (Las Cruces Sun-News)

Routine traffic stop results in chase, two arrests

By Ashley Meeks Sun-News reporter
Article Launched: 09/20/2008 12:00:00 AM MDT

MESQUITE — A traffic stop Friday resulted in two arrests and the probable deportation of four men from Durango, Mexico, two of whom fled on foot into a cotton field and a drainage ditch.

At 9:51 a.m., Doña Ana sheriff's deputies pulled over a 1997 Crown Victoria as it turned south off Yucca Road onto N.M. 478. Sgt. Craig Buckingham said the driver, 35-year-old Ruben Gerardo-Matias, was driving 50 mph in a 30 mph zone, that he failed to come to a stop and that he didn't use his turn signal.

Gerardo-Matias and front seat passenger Jose Jimenez-Olguin, 40, fled on foot, said Deputy Jaime Reyes, one of three deputies who caught him.

"He was playing meerkat," Reyes said. "You know how they hide and then they pop up and down? Picture a man in a cotton field popping up and down to see where his predators were."

Gerardo-Matias was detained soon after when a Border Patrol canine found him hiding in a drainage ditch. Reyes said Gerardo-Macias also had an outstanding warrant, but declined to state what it was for. Gerardo-Macias was treated at the scene for a head injury from diving into the ditch, Reyes said.

Gerardo-Matias and Jimenez-Olguin were arrested and expected to be charged with resisting, evading and obstructing law enforcement and sent to the Doña Ana County Detention Center, Buckingham said.

The two men in the back seat did not run and were turned over to the Border Patrol for deportation after it was determined they were in the country illegally, Reyes said. Officers did not know how long any of the men had been in the country. No drugs or weapons were found at the scene.