By Jon Johnson
TUCSON – Three migrants were treated at a local hospital Sunday after being shoved out of a moving vehicle by their smuggler.
The three migrants, ages 16, 25, and 28, all hail from Guatemala.
According to a release from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, at about 4:30 p.m., Border Patrol agents at the Three Points Station attempted to stop a black Dodge truck traveling northbound on Federal Route 19 for an immigration inspection.
The driver of the truck failed to yield, however, and instead began to speed in excess of 80 mph.
Shortly afterward, however, an agent reported that the truck slowed and three people appeared to have been “forced out of it.”
Agents stopped to render aid to the three migrants, who were seriously injured and were transported to a local hospital by Sells Emergency Medical Services.
The Tohono O’odham Police Department located the suspect Dodge truck abandoned near the village of Ali-Chuckson on State Route 86. A search of the truck yielded a loaded 9-mm pistol, as well as fentanyl pills and “personal-use amounts” of cocaine and marijuana. The driver was not found.
