State Police may have missed an opportunity to prevent last week’s triple fatal crash hours before it occurred.
A 911 caller reported at 5:05 p.m. April 13 that a vehicle carrying three men was driving erratically and by someone who appeared to be drunk, according to 911 dispatch logs and the reporting party.
The caller did not say who the driver of the vehicle was, but the same Dodge Durango was being driven by Richard Vialpando about six hours later when it was involved in the two-car collision on State Road 96 in Coyote that killed him and the two men in the other car. And Vialpando is now suspected of having been drunk at the time of the fatal crash, Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s Department deputy James Lujan said.
A Bode’s General Merchandise Store manager had made the 911 call to State Police’s dispatch. She gave the make, model and license plate number of the vehicle and said it was being driven erratically and by someone who appeared to be drunk, according to dispatch logs.
The logs state that no other calls were made for the same incident, and the call disposition is listed as “cancel, explain in notes.”
State Police Capt. Daniel Lovato said he did not know as of Wednesday (4/15) whether any officer was assigned to the call. He was not sure whether the call was canceled because no officer was available or because an officer did not find anything.
Radio traffic on another call around the same time states that State Police was short on manpower.
“I didn’t see any officers; no officers came and asked what direction did (the car) go,” said the Bode’s manager, who did not want to give her name.
One occupant of the Durango entered the store, looked around and did not attempt to buy anything, she said. She would not identify the man but described his condition.
“He seemed drunk to me,” the manager said.
The man’s demeanor prompted her 911 call. The manager said the suspicious car lingered in the parking lot for about 15 minutes after she called 911, and then left the area.
“The next morning when I found out who it was (killed in the accident) I was very upset because we could have saved somebody’s life,” she said. “People who sell alcohol go through all these classes, you get a liquor server card and you sell to the wrong person and you’re fined. It’s just kind of disheartening that you go out of your way to follow these rules and nothing’s done.”
Not only the Bode’s manager, but the neighboring communities of Coyote, Cañones, Gallina and Youngsville were reeling April 14 from the news that Vialpando, 22, of Cañones, Alfred Jaramillo, 21, and James Jaramillo, 23, both of Youngsville, had been killed the previous night in a head-on collision when both cars apparently crossed the center line.
“Everyone that comes in, that’s the first thing they talk to me about,” Mario Sanchez, owner of Kountry Kwik Stop in Gallina, said.
Sanchez said on the day of the crash he didn’t see any of the people involved in his establishment, including the two passengers in Vialpando’s car who survived the crash: Baltizar Martinez, 53, of Colorado, and Larry Martinez, 53, of Arroyo de Agua. Sanchez had heard Vialpando and the Martinezes had been drinking in Abiquiú that day.
The Bode’s manager said not only that she didn’t sell to anyone involved in the crash, but that the only person in the car driven by Vialpando who entered her store didn’t attempt to buy alcohol from her. Eppie Jaramillo, a Blue Spruce Bar employee who said she was working all day April 13, said she didn’t see any of the five at the bar, and then hung up.
Deputy James Lujan said no liquor establishments were being investigated in connection with the crash, because the two survivors refused to say where they bought their alcohol.
Wherever the liquor was purchased, the evidence shows the occupants of the car Vialpando was driving were drinking, according to the Department.
“The alcohol came from the Durango,” Lujan said. “There were full cans and empty cans of Budweiser and an empty bottle of tequila. I didn’t see any open or closed containers in the (Chevy Cavalier Alfred Jaramillo was driving).”
Toxicology test results showing the blood alcohol concentrations of everyone involved won’t be ready for several more weeks. Lujan said Baltizar Martinez admitted that the group was drinking and driving when he spoke to him at the hospital, but Martinez didn’t directly implicate Vialpando as driving drunk. Nevertheless, Lujan believes Vialpando was driving drunk.
An aunt of the Jaramillo brothers said Tuesday that she didn’t believe the brothers were drinking that night, although it was Alfred Jaramillo’s 21st birthday.
The brothers had left their house in Youngsville to pick up something at a relative’s house and were heading back home at the time of the crash, said the aunt, who did not want to be named.
The aunt did not place blame on Vialpando for causing the crash.
“I blame the other guys, the older people that had him there,” the aunt said, referring to Larry and Baltizar Martinez. “They had been drinking since Easter, everyone saw them everywhere.”
Vialpando’s mother declined to speak for this story.
St. Vincent Hospital staff said Tuesday that there was no record of either of the Martinezes being at the hospital, indicating either that they were discharged or that they had requested to be listed as privacy patients. Lujan said Baltizar Martinez suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung, and Larry Martinez had surgery on his legs.
“Baltizar’s spirits are as good as they could be from what I’ve understood,” Sanchez said. “I heard he’s doing better, talking, not in the (intensive care unit).”
The Jaramillo brothers’ parents, meanwhile, are taking the loss hard, their aunt said. They declined to comment for this story.
Rangers at the Coyote Ranger District, where Alfred Jaramillo was a wildland fighter for three years, declined to discuss their former colleague. The aunt described Alfred as athletic, friendly and interested in fishing and hunting elk and deer.
James Jaramillo’s former employers at Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino’s golf club spoke warmly of their conscientious employee.
“There’s a few amazing people you come across in your life that are so consistent and so full of life and honesty, just stand-up people, and he was one of them,” his supervisor Fadel Nahle said. “We’ll look at a tree he pruned or the walkway he did at the wedding chapel and we kind of smile and think of him.”
The Bode’s manager also knew “the boys,” as everyone refers to the Jaramillo brothers, and that compounded her frustration at law enforcement’s apparent negligence in following up on her tip.
“If the police had pulled that vehicle over for sure they would have all been arrested and they would have impounded that vehicle,” the manager said. “Maybe the Jaramillos would not have lost their sons.”