Trucker who killed 5 cyclists had ‘high level’ of meth in system
New York Post
December 17, 2020
A truck driver who killed five bicyclists on a Nevada highway last week had an “extremely high level” of methamphetamine in his system, prosecutors said.
Jordan Alexander Barson, 45, has been charged in the Dec. 10 crash that left five cyclists dead and several others hurt on US 95 between Boulder City and Searchlight, about 60 miles south of Las Vegas.
“I’m a loss for words,” Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said in a statement Wednesday.
“I have said hundreds of times, to countless people, making the choice to get behind the wheel of a car when you are intoxicated is reckless. Those actions are unacceptable, and they have consequences.”
Barson faces five counts of DUI resulting in death and other reckless driving charges.
Wolfson said Barson had an “extremely high level” of methamphetamine in his system at the time of the fatal wreck, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Blood tests indicated he had nine times the allowable amount of meth in his system at the time, according to prosecutor Eric Bauman.
Barson, of Kingman, Arizona, was in custody Wednesday and was awaiting extradition. If convicted, he faces up to decades in prison, Wolfson said.
An emotional Barson initially told investigators he fell asleep in his 2019 Isuzu NPR HD box truck before crashing into the group of nearly 20 cyclists, according to body camera footage released Wednesday by state officials, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Barson later admitted to investigators during an interview at his home Monday that he relapsed and took the addictive stimulant the afternoon before the crash and then didn’t sleep well, other bodycam footage shows.
“I’m afraid I’m going to prison forever,” Barson said. “I feel so bad for them, like why did I survive that?”
The cyclists, who were taking part in an annual 130-mile ride from Las Vegas through the desert of Nevada and California, were also celebrating the recent retirement of a fellow rider during the trip, witnesses previously said.
“It’s the worst thing I could ever see in my life,” Michael Anderson, a retired police officer in the group, told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I’ve seen stuff as a police officer in public service … when it’s your friends, I’ve never seen that.”
The cyclists killed in the crash, who were trailing behind an escort vehicle, have been identified as Erin Michelle Ray, 39, Gerrard Suerez Nieva, 41, Michael Todd Murray, 57, Aksoy Ahmet, 48, and Tom Trauger, 57, the Review-Journal reported.
Two others were seriously hurt, including one critically, whose condition was unclear Wednesday, the newspaper reported.
1 comment:
Nevada has an allowable amount of meth in a driver's system? The war on drugs is over. We lost.
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