Illegal immigrant charged with killing St Louis cop while driving drunk

According to Spectrum News, Officer David Lee was killed after responding to a one-vehicle crash on eastbound Interstate 70 near Grand Boulevard. He had been checking the trunk of his vehicle when another vehicle ran into the officer, pinning his body between the cars, then throwing the officer several feet.

The driver of the other car was identified as 24-year-old Ramon A. Chavez-Rodriguez, who, according to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, is a Honduran illegal immigrant in the US.

"He killed one of our police officers and I want to see justice served and that’s why we had to wait till today to at least talk about some of the things," St. Louis Police Chief Robert Tracy said of the incident.

The off-duty firefighter got out of her vehicle, rushing to help Lee, took his walkie-talkie, and called for help. St. Louis firefighters arrived and took Lee to St. Louis University Hospital where he died while in surgery. He was only 44-years-old.

Chavez-Rodriguez was driving at least 71 miles per hour five seconds before the crash even though the posted speed limit in the area is 55 miles per hour. Chavez-Rodriguez was taken into custody at the scene. Tracy said Chavez-Rodriguez showed signs of impairment and a blood test revealed he had a BAC of .10 around two hours after the crash when the legal limit is .08 in Missouri.

In 2020, Chavez-Rodriguez pled guilty to a second-degree domestic assault and DWI, per NBC 5, where he abused a woman and attempted to hit her with a car. He pled guilty to a DWI charge at the time as well. He was on probation at the time of Sunday’s incident.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore said Chavez-Rodriquez’s immigration status “does have an impact on our assessment as to whether or not he’s a flight risk or poses a danger to the community, whether or not he’s someone who should receive bond.”

In addition to being charged with death of law enforcement or emergency personnel with DWI, he has also been charged with exceeding the posted speed limit and operating a vehicle on a highway without a valid license. He is being held without bond.

St. Charles County Prosecutor Joe McCulloch said, “Homeland Security was notified that he was arrested, that he was charged, and he was in this country illegally. Their answer is they’re not going to issue a detainer—and a detainer is something that would tell us to hold him until they could get him—but they weren’t going to do that, because he’d already been in the system back in 2020 when this incident occurred.”