My Thursday Night

Crazed Mexicans, Gunplay and a High-Speed Chase

So I’m driving back from San Diego around 11 p.m. last night when I came to the border check/produce inspection/weigh station halfway between San Diego and Orange County. You can usually just blow right through, but last night traffic was funneled into two lanes. Cars were being waved through two at a time, past an armed border agent and stop sign lit with flood lights,

As I get closer to the officer waving cars through, I see about a dozen other cops behind the barricade. And they’re not just waving cars through, they’re looking for someone. I finally get to the front of the line, in the left-hand lane. The cop does his routine both-hands-out “halt” gesture, but then gets this innerved look on his face and pulls his gun and everyone starts yelling. Behind the car to the right of me is what looks to be an 18-passenger van full of crazed Mexicans.

I say crazed because I could see the whites of the wide-open eyes of the three in the front seat as a border patrol officer stood on their bumper and pointed his gun into the cab. By this time the rest of the officers had surrounded the van. I don’t think any shots were fired but I heard breaking glass and crunching bumpers as the van rocked back and forth, into reverse and then into drive, but they were trapped—trapped, that is, until I decided to save my own ass.

These guys were freaked out and not about to stop, and I wasnt about to risk a getting hit, or worse yet shot, to help these border patrol guys stop another 15 tomato pickers from getting away. So nothing between me and the open highway, and a vanload of crazed Mexicans playing bumper cars and a lot of drawn weapons behind me, I naturally got the hell out of there.

Problem is, by pulling up I opened up a hole the Mexicans saw and squeezed out—literally, scraping across the car next to me with the engine gunned. I pulled over to the left-most lane of the six-lane highway and out of nowhere a caravan—patrol cars, unmarked cop cars, border patrol SUV’s, a random station wagon with sirens blazing—went blazing by me to catch the van.

Holy shit, right? Then I was just sitting out there on the open freeway. There were a couple of cops kicking the ground and obviously pissed off that they just let the van get away. Well, that I let the van get away.

Behind me all the traffic was still blocked off, and in front of me was open highway with my first ever high-speed chase getting away. No one was stopping me so I got back on the highway.

As I got close I could smell burning metal and rubber and pieces of safety glass started peppering my windshield. Just as I got a glimpse the sparks coming off the van’s rims a cop started weaving across the highway to stop traffic.

Some time later they let the backed up traffic, among which I was the first in line, file pase the scene.The front left wheel of the van was gone, as well as both tires on the right side, and the van was plowed into the highway at a weird angle. And there were about 15 Mexicans lines up on their knees against the guard rail.

And that’s my crazed Mexican/high speed chase story. It sounds sort of anti climactic writen out, but it was pretty nuts there for a little while. Really good rubber-necking, anyway. Just thought I'd write it out so I don't have to retell it a million times.

Ciao all.

Chris