Single Vehicle Collision Into Mountainside Results in Arrest; Off-Duty Officers Assist in Incident

A single vehicle traffic collision on Highway 330 last week resulted in the arrest of a 29-year-old Santa Fe Springs man, according to a report issued by the California Highway Patrol. On Thursday, March 19 at about 10:10pm, the 29-year-old was driving his minivan, when it struck the mountainside just north of 330’s middle passing lane and landed on its side. The driver sustained a minor laceration to the back of his head, and his two-year-old stepson, who was in a carseat, sustained minor injuries, which were treated at Loma Linda University Medical Center following a transport via ambulance. However, before the child was transported, the driver handed the two-year-old to a bystander; the driver then became distraught and produced a handgun, reportedly displaying suicidal tendencies. An off-duty peace officer, who’d stopped to offer assistance, ordered at gunpoint that the weapon be dropped while the driver remained in the overturned minivan with the gun while verbally requesting that the officer shoot him. CHP Officer Gary Fernandez, who was off-duty and driving by, also stopped at the incident, and talked to the distraught driver with the gun while CHP officers arrived on scene. The driver eventually became less emotional and, once he climbed down from the car, was handcuffed and taken into custody without further incident. Once in custody, the driver was found to have committed other crimes prior to crashing his vehicle and, in fact, had fired his weapon toward his wife, who was driving a vehicle ahead of him with her other son. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is investigating crimes associated with the driver, while the CHP handles the collision investigation.