ST. LOUIS – Charges have been filed against a man accused of driving drunk and causing a crash that killed a St. Louis police officer over the weekend.
Officer David Lee was killed Sunday morning after responding to a one-vehicle crash on eastbound Interstate 70 near Grand Boulevard around 8:30 a.m., according to St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy.
The chief said an off-duty Ferguson firefighter, who was on her way home, was the driver of the vehicle that crashed. Officer Lee was behind his police vehicle and retrieving traffic cones from his trunk when another driver lost control of their 2019 Kia Sorrento, spun out, and struck Lee.
Lee was pinned between the Sorrento and his own vehicle and then thrown several feet. Tracy said the off-duty firefighter risked her own life by getting out of her vehicle and rushed to Lee’s aid. She took his walkie-talkie and radioed for help.
According to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s probable cause statement, the driver of the Sorrento, identified as Ramon A. Chavez-Rodriguez, 24, was driving at least 71 miles per hour five seconds before the crash. The posted speed limit at that location is 55 miles per hour.
St. Louis firefighters arrived a short time later and took Officer Lee to St. Louis University Hospital. Lee died while in surgery. He was 44.
Chavez-Rodriguez remained at the scene and was taken into custody. During a Sunday afternoon news conference, Chief Tracy said the driver showed signs of impairment and “lived locally.” A blood test revealed Chavez-Rodriguez had a BAC of .10 approximately two hours after the crash.
Court documents show Chavez-Rodriguez has a St. Peters address. The probable cause statement indicates he “does not have legal status in the United States” and was driving without a valid license.
Police said that federal investigators are checking the suspect’s immigration status. A hearing on that was previously scheduled for October.
While the immigration status does not impact the criminal charges, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said, “It does have an impact on our assessment as to whether or not he’s a flight risk or poses a danger to the community, whether or not he’s someone who should receive bond.”
The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office charged Chavez-Rodriguez with DWI—death of law enforcement or emergency personnel, exceeding posted speed limit, and operating a vehicle on a highway without a valid license. Chavez-Rodriguez remains jailed without bond. He had been on probation for a second-degree domestic assault charge in St. Charles County in 2020.
St. Charles County Prosecutor Joe McCulloch said they had already alerted federal authorities.
“Homeland security was notified that he was arrested, that he was charged, and he was in this country illegally. Their answer is they’re not going to issue a detainer—and a detainer is something that would tell us to hold him until they could get him—but they weren’t going to do that, because he’d already been in the system back in 2020 when this incident occurred.”
Chief Tracy said Officer Lee was the 167th police officer to die in the line of duty. He worked out of the SLMPD’s North Patrol and had served in the Traffic Division for the past four years. Lee is survived by his wife and their children.
“We want this individual held accountable,” Tracy said. “We want to make sure he’s brought to justice.”
