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An on-campus car crash led to the arrest of two men accused of driving under the influence of mind-altering substances Wednesday afternoon.
UNM’s Police Department caught and arrested driver Tony Nelson, 24, who operated the vehicle while smoking a synthetic type of marijuana called spice, and passenger Jonathan Zamora, 18, who was also intoxicated. Neither man was a UNM student.
The men were charged with receiving and transferring a stolen motor vehicle, conspiracy and tampering with evidence, said UNMPD public information officer Lt. Tim Stump.
Nelson and Zamora are still facing possible additional charges of possession of spice and leaving the crime scene, Stump said. He said the two will be tried by grand jury, but he said it is still unknown when that will occur.
Stump said Nelson’s car was driving west along Las Lomas Road when the accident happened at about 3 p.m.
“The driver probably passed out or fell asleep,” Stump said. “He clips the car, rolls over and ends up hitting two cars. (The car) rolled over, but somehow the two subjects got out and ran and took off.”
Police also identified that Nelson was driving a stolen vehicle.
According to a police report from UNMPD, the Albuquerque Police Department contacted officers in the scene after the incident. APD was in the process of filing a report about a possible car theft at the time, according to the UNMPD report.
When APD showed the wrecked red Toyota Rav4 to Rhonda Porter, the woman who reported the theft, she positively identified that it was indeed stolen and that it belonged to her mother Betty Carley, according to the report. Porter told police that she was “taking care of her mother’s vehicle while she was out of the country,” according to the report.
UNM student Mari Perez said she witnessed the incident.
“(After the incident) I saw two men immediately climb out of the car and run west on Las Lomas,” she said.
Authorities were able to chase Nelson and Zamora to the intersection of University and Lomas Boulevards.
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Although the men had “no real injuries,” officers held them for medical evaluation before taking them to jail, Stump said.
Stump said Nelson refused to provide personal information to police at first. But officers identified him through his fingerprints found in the car, he said. He said they also discovered that Nelson’s driver’s license was suspended at the time of the accident.
Police found “several” spice cigarettes in the car, Stump said. He said Zamora also admitted to smoking when interrogated.
“Zamora told us that (Nelson) picked him up — he didn’t know his name, he didn’t know anything about him,” he said. “He picked him up and they were driving around smoking spice all day. He said they had been smoking spice cigarettes since 1 p.m. that day.”
Stump said Nelson stole the car from Porter’s house on 13th Street. He said police identified the theft shortly after the accident.
“What happened was they take the accident,” he said. “The APD guys then take a stolen vehicle report, runs the plate, and it shows that we had run the plate so they got ahold of us to find out why we were running the plate.”
Stump said UNMPD still does not know whether Carley would decide to file charges against Nelson and Zamora.
No one was injured in the accident, Stump said. He said that although the area where the accident occurred is often crowded, the place was less busy than usual that day.
“We’re very glad that there was not a high pedestrian traffic (during the incident), because that’s a high pedestrian traffic area on Las Lomas,” he said. “Maybe it was before fall break, but for whatever reason, there weren’t a lot of people there. Luckily, nobody was hurt.”
