Audio of the emergency call a federal agent made for help responding to a fatal car crash in Grand Rapids last month provides some more details about the incident.
According to family friends, Mario David Coronado-Juarez immigrated from an impoverished part of Guatemala. He was working a construction job in Grand Rapids and sending money to his family back home.
On September 20, Immigration and Customs Enforcement attempted to pull the man over on the city's southwest side but ended the pursuit when he started to flee, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, reported.
"We tried lighting a guy up and he wouldn't stop so we turned our lights off," an ICE agent told dispatchers.
The statement claims officers then saw smoke nearly a half mile away from where they’d tried to stop Coronado-Juarez, then drove to the scene to attempt to help him.
"He looks DOA," the agent said, using the Homeland Security Department's shorthand for "dead on arrival."
"Looks like a single occupant but the car's pretty mangled up."
"There's a bunch of us out here," she responds when the dispatcher asks if her partner is also on scene. The agent's named is redacted in the audio provided by the Grand Rapids Police Department.
"I was moving in case that car blew up," the agent says to someone on the scene.
"What was the initial stop?" the dispatcher asks. "Just to make contact?"
"Yeah. I'd have to ask my partner," she said.
Michigan Public obtained the audio from the Grand Rapids Police Department through a records request.
The Grand Rapids Fire Department and Grand Rapids police responded to the crash, but were unable to save Coronado-Juarez.
Michigan State Police are investigating the incident.
Michigan Public's Dustin Dwyer and Adam Yahya Rayes contributed reporting.
