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Manhunt ends in suspect's capture
Published October 29, 2009
Jose Vazquez-Becerra ran, but he couldn't hide.
A local law enforcement chase of Vazquez-Becerra, 17, a resident of Ciudad Acuña, Coah., Mexico, began about 11 a.m. Wednesday, according to Texas DPS Lt. Byron Martin.
Martin said a DPS trooper attempted to stop the brown 1995 Chevrolet pickup truck Vazquez-Becerra was allegedly driving on U.S. Highway 90 near its “Y” intersection with U.S. Highway 277 just north of Del Rio.
The truck sped away south, entering the Del Rio city limits and careening across the median just south of the National Park Service administrative offices.
The truck crashed through a barbed-wire fence onto a private ranch on the east side of U.S. Highway 90, just south of its intersection with Quail Road.
There, Vazquez-Becerra, who Martin said was the sole occupant of the truck, bailed out and began running through the brushy scrub.
Duffle bags and sacks containing bundles of marijuana were discovered in the bed of the abandoned pickup. Martin said the marijuana recovered from the truck weighed a total of 338 pounds.
An hour-long manhunt for the teen ensued, involving members of the Texas Department of Public Safety, the U.S. Border Patrol, National Park Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Val Verde County Sheriff's Office and Del Rio Police Department.
As a Department of Public Safety helicopter circled repeatedly over the ranch, Border Patrol agents trailered in a quartet of horses and rode into the thick brush while other agents searched on foot with the assistance of a narcotics dog.
About an hour into the search, lead Border Patrol agent Clay Dissler flushed the teenager from his hiding place near a shed in the Quail Run subdivision and walked him back to DPS officers waiting on the road.
Martin said Vazquez-Becerra has been charged with the offense of possession of marijuana, more than 50 pounds, less than 2,000 pounds, a second-degree felony.
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