Two Marines killed in a vehicle crash at the southern U.S. border last month were convoying along a two-lane desert highway in New Mexico when the driver attempted to pass another vehicle and veered off the road to avoid oncoming traffic, according to a local police report.
The sheriff’s office report said the Marines were following a Border Patrol vehicle with its lights on that was passing a commercial vehicle traveling in the same direction. But when the Marines attempted to follow, another vehicle appeared — coming head-on from the opposite direction — and their Jeep veered off the road into a several-foot-high wall jutting out from a ditch.
Lance Cpl. Albert Aguilera, 22, and Lance Cpl. Marcelino Gamino, 28, both combat engineers assigned to Task Force Sapper out of Camp Pendleton, California, were killed in the April 15 crash near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. A third Marine, the driver, was initially listed as being in critical condition, but has since been released from the hospital and is considered stable, a spokesperson for the task force told Military.com on Tuesday.
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A sheriff’s deputy identified 19-year-old Zeth Collins as the driver and described him as a Marine with 1st Combat Engineer Battalion out of Camp Pendleton, according to the report. The Task Force Sapper spokesperson, 1st Lt. Giselle Cancino, declined to confirm information about the Marine listed in the report.
The police report, which was obtained from the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office in New Mexico, said all passengers were unresponsive with major injuries when emergency services arrived at the scene and that they were subsequently transported to an El Paso, Texas, hospital by Border Patrol helicopters.
It said “driver inattention” and “improper overtaking” contributed to the crash, but that no alcohol was involved. Stars and Stripes, a military newspaper, first reported on the police report on Monday.
Task Force Sapper is composed of Marines from 1st CEB, and the Marine Corps previously said that all three were assigned to the unit. The Pentagon ordered roughly 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton to San Diego in late January as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and border security mission.
The Marines were driving a silver Jeep Gladiator, previously described by defense officials to Military.com as a contracted rental vehicle, which are commonly used during the border mission. The crash occurred mid-morning on Highway 9, which the police report described as having two lanes with no divider in between them.
The police report said that after attempting to pass, the Jeep traveled 400 feet before impacting a wall that stuck out of a ditch 5-8 feet above the ground. The vehicle was heavily damaged, with the “entire front end” pushed into the front axle and the truck bed bent upward, it said.
A witness interviewed by the police said the convoy turned around to help the occupants, but the eastbound vehicle the Jeep was trying to avoid did not stop. It was unclear how many vehicles were part of the convoy. Military.com attempted to contact a witness listed in the police report but was unsuccessful.
Cancino said the Marine Corps is “actively investigating” the incident, but did not provide additional details about the crash, given the ongoing inquiry.
Task Force Sapper is headquartered in San Diego. At the time of the incident, it was not immediately clear what the Marines were doing in New Mexico, which is far away from where the unit is charged with reinforcing the barrier wall between the U.S. and Mexico in Southern California.
“Task Force Sapper, while headquartered in San Diego, is not tied to a specific sector,” Cancino said. “Marines assigned to the task force are capable and willing to support operations across the entire joint operations area in support of Joint Task Force Southern Border.”
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