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Albuquerque crash probe extends to bars

By Christopher Sanchez
Originally published 08:28 a.m., January 2, 2008
Updated 01:29 p.m., January 2, 2008

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State officials are investigating whether the military policeman accused of killing two people in a drunken-driving crash on New Year's Day might have been overserved at an Albuquerque bar.

Investigators are looking into where Airman Micah Henry, a 23-year-old stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base, was drinking, said Peter Olson, a spokesman for the state Public Safety Department.

Henry is expected to be arraigned today on charges of vehicular homicide in the first two Albuquerque traffic fatalities of the year.

Police say his SUV crashed into a Nissan pickup truck, killing Marvin Garcia, 44, of Santa Fe and Josephine Lawika, 47, of Cochiti Pueblo.

Police say Henry's blood-alcohol content was twice the legal limit when he ran a red light at a North Valley intersection and broadsided the pickup truck around 1:40 a.m. Tuesday.

Henry was not hurt in the crash, police said, and is being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in lieu of $50,000 bond.

"It's the typical story where the drunk walks away without a scratch," Albuquerque police spokesman John Walsh said Tuesday. "This is so tragic."

Police say they believe Lawika, who was driving the truck, was Garcia's girlfriend.

Under state law, a bar can be held liable if investigators learn it overserved a person who later drove drunk.

The Horse and Angel Tavern in Albuquerque was found to have overserved Gabriel Gurule, then 21, on Thanksgiving Day 2006. Gurule later ran a red light and hit a cab, killing its driver and two passengers.

The bar was fined and forced to close at midnight for a year.

Witnesses say Henry was speeding north and weaving through traffic on Fourth Street when he made a U-turn at Candelaria Road Northwest and started driving "at a high rate of speed" south, toward Menaul Boulevard, Walsh said.

Witnesses saw Henry's sport utility vehicle run the red light and hit the Nissan pickup traveling east on Menaul, Walsh said.

"The impact was so great that in order to pull the vehicles apart, the Fire Department had to use one of its trucks," Walsh said.

Terry Huertaz, director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving New Mexico, said the crash was a terrible way to ring in the new year.

"It's very heartbreaking to know some New Mexico families continue to suffer for something that's so preventable," Huertaz said. "It's not the way I wanted to start 2008 - that's for sure."

Numerous agencies and businesses, including Bernalillo County, AAA and many bars, offered free rides home to patrons who were too drunk to drive.

Huertaz said the state must continue to fight drunken driving.

"It's sad," she said. "But we'll just redouble our efforts. Whatever it takes. We've made great strides in this state, and we will continue until no family has to suffer from drunken driving."

Linda Atkinson, director of the DWI Resource Center, said the families of the victims will never forget what happened early on New Year's Day.

"Everything will remind them - another crash, holidays, that time of the morning. It's everything. It just goes on and on," she said.

Walsh said no other drunken driving crashes were reported in Albuquerque over the New Year's holiday.

The Bernalillo County Sheriff's Department had a saturation patrol in the South Valley on Tuesday night, while the Albuquerque Police Department set up two DWI checkpoints on New Year's Eve. Six people were arrested on DWI charges, Walsh said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.