Telltale Foot Leads Officers to Human Cargo in Pickup

CHP Officer David Bradley first noticed the foot.

“When I saw it was connected to a leg, I thought I had a dead body on my hands,” Bradley recalled after California Highway Patrol officers examined the cab of a red pickup truck that had stopped on the San Diego Freeway in Westminster Thursday morning.

Bradley and another officer drew their guns. Instead of finding a dead body, they found a Mexican national wedged in the tiny space behind the pickup’s cab and a bench seat.

Three others were found sandwiched in a utility tool box, only two feet wide by five feet long and 30 inches deep, and seven more were hiding under bags of fertilizer in the truck’s rear bed, for a total of 11 men, said CHP spokesman Kevin R. Dougherty.

Two Americans Held

In addition, two U.S. citizens, including driver Allen Lamor Jones, 18, and a 16-year-old juvenile, both from Chula Vista, were held on suspicion of smuggling the men into the United States, Dougherty said.

As motorists gawked at the men propped against the center divider, mid-morning traffic slowed and backed up for several miles in the northbound lanes from the San Diego and Garden Grove freeway junction south to the Magnolia Street off-ramp.

Dougherty said the driver of the pickup had pulled off the freeway near the center divider to cut off a chunk of tire rubber that had become loose. Bradley and another officer discovered the men in the truck just after leaving the scene of a nearby car accident.

During an interview, Jones, who said he spoke Spanish, said he had charged $50 per person to drive the men to Los Angeles, where they were to be dropped off. Jones would not say where he had picked up his passengers.

One of the riders, a 17-year-old, said he and the others had climbed into Jones’ red truck early Thursday morning in Tijuana. The young man, who stood about 5 feet 6 and weighed about 135 pounds and had lain behind the cab’s front seat for about two hours, said the journey was mildly uncomfortable.

He and other suspected illegal aliens were turned over to a U.S. Border Patrol officer, who took the men to the immigra

tion checkpoint south of San Clemente for processing. From there the men, who voluntarily chose to be returned to Mexico, were to board a bus headed to the U.S.-Mexico border at San Ysidro.

Eluded Checkpoint

Immigration authorities did not know how the truck eluded the checkpoint during its journey.

An immigration officer said Jones would probably be charged as a “coyote”--a smuggler of Mexican nationals into the United States, although no decision has been made. The juvenile was to be released to his parents.