AP: 21 hurt as van crashes during Border Patrol chase in Otay Mesa

[question everything]

21 hurt as van crashes during Border Patrol chase in Otay Mesa

By Elliot Spagat
ASSOCIATED PRESS

5:05 p.m. February 10, 2006

SAN DIEGO – Twenty-one people were injured, eight critically, when a van being chased by U.S. Border Patrol agents crashed Friday in Otay Mesa, authorities said.

The blue Chevrolet Sportvan packed with suspected illegal immigrants overturned on state Route 905 around 1:40 p.m. while trying to avoid a spike strip that Border Patrol agents placed in its path, said Richard Kite, a Border Patrol spokesman at the scene. Twenty-eight were in the van when it crashed.

The van was part of an organized smuggling effort that involved two other vans transporting suspected illegal immigrants, Kite said. Together, the three vans were attempting to transport nearly 90 people, he said.

(snip)

Eight people suffered life-threatening injuries, while 13 were being treated for minor injuries, said Maurice Luque, a San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman at the scene. Two helicopters and nine ambulances converged on the roadway to ferry the injured to four hospitals. There were no immediate reports of any fatalities. Seven people were not injured.

(snip)

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060210-1705-ca-bordercrash.html

[ClayZ]

1. Mercy!

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

:cry:

[Igel]

7. "The golden door".

Not the kitchen window.

And do we really think they were "yearning to breathe free" or are "wretched refuse"? "Homeless"?

[lovuian]

2. Is it just me or does the border towns have a problem...

Its almost like if we got invaded by Mexico would we really know???

[rsmith6621]

3. Thank God.....Foxnews Will Now

Have a story to divert everyones attention from the Bush failures.

[sweetheart]

4. in to the border rode the 21

A mile and a half more,
Another mile onwards,
In to the border of death,
Rode the twenty one.
Forward cheap labour!
Charge without union favour,
In to the belly of lost hope,
rode the twenty one.

Forward Cheap Labour!
Was there a one amongst us to deport.
Not what the strong arms of cheap labour knew,
in to the trench,
picking the fruit,
underclass lie,
live free and die,
In to the border of death,
rode the twenty one.

Flashed all the bare arms there,
strong were the arms gathered,
Showing strong mind firm wars,
slave buyers so flattered,
Trafficked across by coyote braves,
Boldly they rode and well,
as the twenty one rode in to hell.

Immigration agents firing from the left,
Desert thirst and heat burning from the right,
And in to the valley of death rode the 21.

But this time when they turned back there were
twenty, one staying to increase the population
of california's urban sprawl.
In to the valley of death rode the 600,
to be forgotten at the US border once and for all.

[ConcernedCanuk]

5. Well - the USA should be relieved that none of us CANUKS wanna "break in"

.
.
.

seems to me that if we had an open border there'd be a lot more Americans up HERE

Am I wrong?

[ninkasi]

6. No

You're not wrong. Canada is a beautiful country. I'm in Texas, though, so I'm much closer to the Mexican border than the one with Canada.