Cop car rammed during pursuit

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — A high-speed pursuit late Saturday night ended with the driver being arrested and a county sheriff’s vehicle being damaged when it was rammed.

It also ended with a Gamerco resident, Gilbert Rosales Jr., 41, of 200 Rosita, being charged with speeding, aggravated fleeing from an officer, aggravated assault on a peace officer, DWI, having an open container in the car and driving with a revoked license.

It began about 11 p.m. when a sheriff’s deputy on patrol noticed a red pickup truck heading west on N.M. Highway 118 approaching Coal Avenue moving at a high rate of speed. The officer turned around and tracked the car going 60 mph in a 30 mph zone. At that point the chase began.

Once the driver saw the deputy, he turned south onto Clark Street and came to a stop. The officer then stopped and noticed that the vehicle had no license plates — only an promotion plate. Before the officer had a chance to get the driver out of the vehicle, it drove away south on Clark and then west on Aztec.

By this time the officer was advised by Metro Dispatch that the vehicle was being driven by Rosales, whom the Gallup Police Department had labeled a “person of interest” in another investigation.

The vehicle, with the sheriff’s car following with full lights and siren on, turned south onto Stagecoach Street and then made a turn onto Escalante Street. It continued south, turning on Calle Piñon Street and then back onto Stagecoach, this time going north. The driver was still going about 60 miles per hour, the sheriff’s report said, did not maintain traffic lanes and did not stop at street intersections, even those posted with a stop sign.

The vehicle turned east on Sagebrush and then north on Calle Piñon, stopping in the middle of the street near the Camino Del Sol intersection.

The deputy stopped about 15 feet from the pickup, and when the driver of the pickup indicated he planned to back up, the officer started driving in reverse until the police vehicle could go no further.

It was at this time that Rosales reportedly backed into the deputy’s vehicle on the rear passenger side. It then went around the deputy’s vehicle and headed east on Escalante and then onto Camino Del Sol where it stopped again. The deputy decided to get within a foot of the pickup to minimize the distance that the suspect could get speed if it tried to ram him vehicle again.

Which is what happened. This time the pickup struck the deputy’s vehicle and pushed it back and then proceeded back onto Stagecoach heading north and then back onto Aztec when it headed east. By this time, one of pickup’s tires was flat.

The officer was then advised by superiors to disable the pickup if necessary because people in the neighborhood had been coming outside after hearing the sirens and the chasing vehicles.

As the pickup was making a U-turn on Aztec, the officer struck it on the left near the tailgate. It started back up and headed west on Aztec, followed now by three police units.

The driver of the pickup was going between 20 and 25 miles an hour at that time and the driver’s side door opened, and Rosales reportedly jumped out as the vehicle kept moving. One of the other police vehicles struck it to stop it before it hit cars that had stopped in the roadway.

Rosales was taken into custody and transported to the hospital for a checkup and then to the jail. The pickup was confiscated, and narcotics officials were called in to handle hypodermic needles that were found on the seat alongside an open alcoholic beverage container.

Tuesday
November 18, 2008
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