Bisbee police Officer R. Coronado said the department received a call from the Arizona Department of Public Safety asking officers to keep an eye out for white SUV being driven erratically and slowly south on Highway 80. Other drivers had called to report the unusual behavior.
Coronado positioned himself at the traffic circle and saw the suspect vehicle coming down a private Freeport McMoRan road called Dead Mine.
 Bisbee police officers R. Coronado, right, and M. Swan investigate the scene of a wreck involving an illegal immigrant in a stolen car following a high-speed chase in Warren on Monday morning. (Shar Porier-Herald/Review) |
“I have no idea how he got onto mining property. But, as he came out onto the roadway, he nearly collided with a another vehicle,” Coronado explained. “That’s when I gave pursuit and called for back-up.”
The chase proceeded from the traffic circle in Warren via Bisbee Road and Rupee Road up to Arizona Street as residents walked, some with their dogs, on the normally quiet streets of East and West Vista roads. People also watched the chase from the Express Stop convenience store right across from Warren Ballpark.
According to Coronado, the driver turned on Arizona Street and then onto Yuma Trail and back down Arizona Street to the ballpark and then back on Rupee Avenue where five police vehicles converged to corral the driver and force him off the road at East Vista and Rupee.
When the driver tried to ram Coronado’s vehicle and that of Chief James Elkins, he lost control, jumped the curb and came to rest with the left front tire in mangled pieces and the right front tire hanging over a four-foot drainage ditch. As fast as the driver was traveling, the car could easily have vaulted the ditch and crashed into a residence at the corner of Rupee and East Vista if the tire hadn’t been destroyed.
The officers handcuffed Jesus Nafarrett-Valenzuela, 28, behind his back as he was pulled from the wrecked SUV that turned out to be stolen from Phoenix.
Officers found a handgun on the floor in the front of the cab. They also discovered a bag of an unknown white powder and a bag of white crystalized powder, added Coronado.
Though Coronado did not sustain injuries in the incident, Elkins was treated at Copper Queen Community Hospital for a broken foot.
Coronado said the illegal immigrant will face 11 charges. Those include two counts of aggravated assault for the ramming of the vehicles of Elkins and Coronado, felony flight, theft of a vehicle and misconduct involving weapons. If the powders prove to be illegal drugs, he will be charged with possession as well.
Nafarrett-Valenzuela was booked into the county jail, and the case will be turned over to the County Attorney’s Office, Coronado added.
Herald/Review reporter Shar Porier can be reached at 515-4692.
