A wife let her husband drive her car. They’re in jail and a cop is in critical condition
A man driving with a suspended driver’s license put a police officer in critical condition with a lacerated liver and other injuries Sunday night, Miami police say.
Hector Guzman, 54, was booked on two counts of driving while on a suspended license and causing bodily injury; driving while on a suspended license, third and subsequent offense; driving while on a suspended license as a habitual offender; and perjury in an unofficial proceeding.
Guzman’s wife, 43-year-old Jacqueline Perez, was charged with permitting an unauthorized operator to drive her car. Guzman’s license has been suspended at least since St. Patrick’s Day 2013, when he was busted for knowingly driving without a license.
He owes $1,300.16 in fines just from traffic tickets in Miami-Dade County, according to traffic court records.
The arrest report says several Miami police officers had stopped at the Modera Riverhouse apartment, 1170 NW 11th St., across the street from the Winn-Dixie that draws from Overtown, Little Havana and the Jackson Memorial Hospital area. Two officers were outside their cruisers dealing with a call for assistance, and one officer remained inside his cruiser.
According to the report, Guzman was coming west on Northwest 11th Street after getting his wife something to eat in her 2015 Kia Soul. Guzman claimed he blacked out before crossing the double line and smashing into a police car with his left front fender.
That shoved the car forward into the two officers. One officer suffered a broken ankle. The report says the other officer suffered a fractured spine in several places, “multiple rib fractures, a collapsed lung and a liver laceration.”
The report says the next Miami police officer on the scene saw Guzman with both legs in the driver’s area of the Kia and the rest of him in the passenger seat. Guzman first tried to say an imaginary friend, a Miguel or Manuel Soto, was driving, but he didn’t know where Mr. Soto went after the crash.
Later, the report says, he gave himself up. He said “he blacked out, but knew he hit something. He stated he looked out of his vehicle and saw the police officers on the ground and knew his life was over.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2019 at 7:22 AM.
