A suspected drunk driver is in police custody after allegedly running over two pedestrians in Fort Worth on Saturday night after fleeing from a traffic stop.
Andrew Michael Guerra, 29, faces several charges after allegedly failing to stop when Fort Worth police officers attempted to pull him over for suspected drunk driving near the intersection of University Drive and Bailey Avenue at around 10 p.m. He allegedly led police on a high-speed chase, which ended when he crashed after striking two pedestrians and another vehicle in the popular West 7th entertainment district.
“I just hear what sounded like an explosion, and then I look up past the building here and I see a bunch of smoke,” a female witness who did not wish to be identified told CBS News Texas. “I just see people running so I run towards it. I see a woman on the sidewalk screaming that she’s in pain and that everything hurts. I see a man laid out.”
The two pedestrians, as well as those inside the other car, were taken to a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Guerra was booked into Lon Evans Corrections Center on January 28 on charges of intoxication assault with a vehicle, evading arrest with a vehicle, and unlawful restraint, according to jail records. His bail was set at $95,000.
Fort Worth police allege that the suspect refused to comply with officers, forcing them to extract him from his vehicle. Guerra also purportedly did not consent to a field sobriety test or a blood draw, according to Fox 4 KDFW.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Fort Worth Police Department has come under fire for its reluctance to release its police pursuit policy to the public amid several deaths resulting from high-speed chases over the past few years.
“The release of this information to anyone will jeopardize the lives of police officers, citizens, and other individuals in the city,” the city warned in a lawsuit filed against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Nonetheless, the city is striving to shore up public safety through neighborhood-focused policing initiatives. Fort Worth saw marked decreases in the murder rate (21.7%) and personal property crimes (4%) in the first three quarters of last year, as covered by The Dallas Express. Moreover, comparative studies between its city center and Downtown Dallas have shown that crime is seven times more likely to occur in the latter.
The City of Dallas crime analytics dashboard has shown that the Dallas Police Department’s Sector 130 — comprising Historic Downtown and Victory Park — had already logged a 20.4% year-over-year bump in auto thefts as of January 26, with reports rising from 54 to 65.
While DPD fields only around 3,000 officers despite a City report calling for closer to 4,000, Fort Worth has a specialized neighborhood police unit working alongside private security guards to patrol its downtown area. The City of Dallas has also budgeted just $654 million this fiscal year, considerably less than what will be spent on law enforcement in other high-crime municipalities, such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
