This happened a couple of days ago, about 20 minutes from where I live:
ENFIELD -- A Hartford man involved in a fatal collision with a motorcyclist who worked as a correction officer was arraigned in Superior Court in Enfield Thursday and held as an undocumented worker.
Luis Perez-Lopez, a 23-year-old illegal immigrant from Guatemala, has been charged with negligent homicide with a motor vehicle, two counts of making an improper turn or stop, driving with articles obstructing his view, operating or towing an unregistered motor vehicle, operating a motor vehicle without a license and failure to insure a private motor vehicle.
Perez-Lopez was arrested Thursday after he collided with a motorcyclist in Suffield just before 7 a.m.
Gary Thureson, a 47-year-old correction officer, was riding his motorcycle west on Mountain Road near Hill Street when he was struck by the car Perez-Lopez was driving, police said.
Perez-Lopez was driving east on Mountain Road and made a left turn in front of Thureson, striking his motorcycle and trapping him under the car. A Suffield police officer and several good Samaritans lifted the car off Thureson.
He was flown to Hartford Hospital, where he died.
In court, Judge Howard Scheinblum set Perez-Lopez's cash surety bond at $50,000, denying a request by Perez-Lopez's public defender for a 10 percent cash alternative. Scheinblum ordered that Perez-Lopez not be held at the McDougall-Walker Correctional Institution, where Thureson worked.
"Given the fact that he's an illegal alien, given the fact that he was driving a car that had no insurance ...that he has no valid Connecticut license, that there's a death - these are the facts that concern me," he said.
"There is an immigration detainer, so bond is essentially academic," Bail Commissioner Paul Maselek told Scheinblum.
A man who attended Perez-Lopez's arraignment, along with Perez-Lopez's brother and girlfriend, declined to comment.
Thureson celebrated his 16th anniversary with the state Department of Correction the day he died, said Stacy Smith, a spokeswoman for the department. He was assigned to the McDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield and had formerly worked at Hartford Correctional Center.
A man who identified himself as a colleague of Thureson's but asked to remain anonymous said that Thureson worked the third shift, from 10:45 p.m. to 7 a.m.
He said Thureson would have been headed home to Otis, Mass., just before the collision, which occurred about five minutes from McDougall-Walker. He described Thureson as an avid golfer and outdoorsman who was going through a divorce.
Information provided during Perez-Lopez's arraignment provided a brief glimpse into his life. A Spanish-speaking interpreter translated for Perez-Lopez, who appeared unhurt.
He has lived in Hartford for about a year and traveled in and out of the United States between 2000 and 2002, according to Maselek.
Perez-Lopez attended school until he was 12 and has worked steadily during the past three years, according to Douglas Ovian, a public defender who represented him during the arraignment. Ovian cited Perez-Lopez's most recent job as a cleaner for an industrial company.
But Maselek said Perez-Lopez worked for the End of Hunt Stables in Suffield and had no criminal record. A woman at End of Hunt said Perez-Lopez did not work there.
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