Intoxication Assault Charged When Driver Rolls F-250 into Suburban Full of Kids

Texas DPS reported that a drunk driver from Garden City caused major motor vehicle crash on U.S. 87 in Wall early this morning at 1:26 a.m. The accused drunk driver was charged with Intoxication Assault.

According to DPS, a 2001 Suburban packed with six passengers, four of them children, was traveling northbound on U.S. 87 near the Wilde Rd. crossover on the inside lane. U.S. 87 is a four-lane, divided highway here.

What DPS described as a drunk driver was also northbound right behind the Suburban. Both vehicles were passing slower traffic in the right, outside lane.

The speed that the Suburban was passing slower traffic may not have been fast enough for the driver of the Ford F-250 trailing them. DPS reported that the drunk driver in the F-250 steered further to the left and into the turn lane for the Wilde Rd. crossover to pass the Suburban on the left.

There wasn’t enough room to allow the suspected drunk clearance to pass, though. DPS reported that the F-250 hit a guardrail just after the Wilde Rd. crossover at the Nine Mile Bridge and rolled over into the Suburban and continued to roll over multiple times.

Of the seven souls in the Suburban were four children, 5, 11, 15, and 16 years old respectively. The Suburban spun around and crashed into the center median, then traveled back crossing the northbound lanes, coming to a rest upright facing east on the outside shoulder.

Charged with Intoxication Assault was the F-250 driver, Juan Manual Bustos Portales, 21, of Garden City. He was not seriously injured. One of his two passengers, 21-year-old Dillon Koenning, also of Garden City, was rushed to the hospital with incapacitating injuries, DPS reported. The second passenger was July Jost, also 21 and from Garden City.

The Suburban was driven by Ruby Alcozer, 35, of Plainview. Johnny and Evette Gonzalez, both 27 and from San Antonio, were two adult passengers, and then there were the four children. None of the occupants of the Suburban suffered incapacitating injuries, DPS reported.

Four ambulances from the San Angelo Fire Department were dispatched to the crash. Also assisting were Wall VFD, Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office Deputies, and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

The skies were clear and the roadways dry, DPS reported.

The crash scene was cleared at approximately 3:30 a.m.