KINNEY COUNTY, Texas (NewsNation) — Four people were killed Wednesday during a chase involving a suspected human smuggling truck near the Texas-Mexico border, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Authorities told NewsNation that three undocumented migrants and a 17-year-old passenger from the U.S. were killed after troopers attempted to stop the vehicle. The driver, an 18-year-old from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, was the only survivor of the crash, officials confirmed to “NewsNation Now.”
“One of our troopers tried to pull over the vehicle and the vehicle did pull over. At that point, the driver just decided to take off and evade law enforcement,” said Texas DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez. “This was a single-vehicle crash. So he lost control. That’s one thing that we are investigating is the crash portion. And when he (the driver) did lose control, he rolled over and multiple people were ejected from the vehicle.”
The deadly crash just days after two suspected smugglers were charged in connection with the death of a woman they allegedly abandoned in the desert before she was struck and killed by a train.
Last September, a Temple, Texas, man was sentenced to 136 months in prison for the death of two migrants during a rollover while the driver of a pickup was trying to evade authorities.
In 2021, a South Texas man was sentenced to 30 years in prison following a June 2018 vehicle crash that killed five migrants and seriously injured eight more.