Updated: ‘Starting From Zero’

Police trying to piece together what led to chase ending with SFPD officer’s death; witness says authorities’ version of crash not quite right

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Police on Thursday morning said they were still looking for a man they believed carjacked a woman at a Santa Fe apartment complex the day before, then led officers on a wrong-way chase on Interstate 25 near Old Pecos Trail that ended with a crash that killed an SFPD officer and another, uninvolved driver.

New Mexico State Police officials, who have taken over the search and the crash investigation, have described the man as wearing a red shirt, black pants and a black jacket. A spokesman for that agency did not respond to emailed questions from SFR seeking more details about the crash, what led up to it and the aftermath.

SFPD Officer Robert Duran, a 43-year-old, married father of two teenage boys who had been with the department since 2015, died in the crash, authorities said. So did Frank Lovato, 62, a retired Las Vegas, NM, firefighter who was driving in the area but not involved in the chase.

Duran and Lovato were pronounced dead at the scene, State Police wrote in a news release issued late Thursday morning.

Police have said the alleged carjacking victim escaped after the crash and was taken by ambulance to a local hospital. They did not identify her on Thursday, but said she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries and later released from the hospital. Also unclear is whether the woman and the suspect knew each other prior to the alleged carjacking at the Rancho Vizcaya Apartments around 11 am Wednesday.

On Thursday evening, State Police issued a news release saying the agency “does not believe that there is an ongoing threat to the public,” but did not explain why.

Reached by telephone Thursday night, State Police Chief Tim Johnson tells SFR that authorities are “starting from zero” in their investigation, but would not elaborate on why the community should feel reassured. Johnson declined to say whether investigators still believe the woman was carjacked.

“We are not going that far yet,” Johnson says.

Police have questioned the woman multiple times, he says, but he would not say whether she stands by her story about what happened at the apartment complex. She is not in custody, but Johnson says he is confident “our guys know where she is.”

Johnson says investigators are still trying to figure out how many people were in the white sedan as it fled from police vehicles.

“Someone was driving that car,” Johnson says of the white sedan that led officers on the chase. “Based on the information we have now, and the folks we’ve talked to and have interest in, yes, we are still trying to identify a suspect. No one has been arrested or charged yet.”

A third party called 911 from the complex, the chief says, adding that investigators are trying to piece the series of events together from that moment.

“Not that anything was bad [in the investigation] before, but like I said, we are starting from zero again,” Johnson says. “We still have everybody who began on this case working 100% on it. This is their only case.”

Meanwhile, Alexis Jenkins of Colorado Springs tells SFR that authorities’ description of the crash is not quite accurate. Jenkins says she saw the initial crash sequence firsthand and that her vehicle was struck by a blue truck—presumably driven by Lovato—then a police vehicle.

A white sedan, which police say the carjacking suspect was driving, was not present at the scene when Jenkins exited her vehicle, she says.

State Police and SFPD have said the carjacking suspect vehicle was one of four involved in the crash—two of the others were police vehicles, one driven by Duran, and the fourth carried Lovato.

The carjacking suspect “fled on foot” after the crash, authorities have said.

Jenkins had checked out of the Ojo spa in Santa Fe around 11 am after a trip with some friends, she tells SFR, and had just gotten on I-25 for her northbound journey back to Colorado. Up ahead, she saw several cars that appeared to be heading toward her, then realized three police vehicles were chasing a white sedan.

The vehicles were taking up the entire northbound lanes, Jenkins says, and she noticed the driver of a blue truck alongside her looking for a way to get off the freeway.

“There was nowhere for us to bail,” she adds.

On Jenkins’ car radio as the moment grew more tense: “Time Is On My Side,” by the Rolling Stones. The blue truck struck her front, right fender, pushing her blue Chevy Malibu into the median and deploying her airbag and blinding her to what was ahead.

That’s when another vehicle struck her head-on.

“I only knew it was a police car because I heard the sirens right outside my car,” Jenkins says. “I was wondering why the officer wasn’t coming to check on me, and that’s when I thought something must be wrong with him. When I got out, I saw that the blue truck was completely smashed.”

She stood, then sat on the side of the road as several bystanders came to check on her. By then, Jenkins knew she was in shock. After 15 minutes or so, ambulances arrived, and she was taken into one of them.

“They checked me out, and I was just worried about the police and the other car,” Jenkins says, beginning to fight tears. “I kept asking: ‘Is he OK?’ They wouldn’t tell me, they said that they couldn’t tell me anything except that there were two fatalities…I assumed that it was the policeman who had hit me who was dead, and I had a lot of survivor’s guilt at that point because I thought that it was my fault that he had died—not my fault directly, but that the collision caused it.”

Later, she was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center and treated for a non-displaced fracture of her forearm. And she learned it had not been Officer Duran who struck her vehicle.

“I assume he crashed into the blue truck,” Jenkins says.

She’s back home, her husband’s Malibu totaled and at a Santa Fe tow lot. The police never questioned her.

“I was so low on the totem pole,” Jenkins says. “There was a dead law enforcement officer and a carjacking.”

She made it a point to not look closely at the wreckage at the crash site. But she’s certain the white sedan was not present.

“Seeing the overhead shots later, that car was not there, where I crashed,” she says. “It was damaged in the other overheads I saw later, but it must have gone another mile or two—I’m not sure how far—southbound down the freeway from where I ended up.”

Images captured by other bystanders and journalists showed what appeared to be a SWAT-type vehicle approaching the white car later.

Thursday morning’s State Police news release included a curious detail.

“During the investigation, a law enforcement only [be on the lookout alert] for a potential suspect was released by unknown persons to social media,” State Police Officer Ray Wilson wrote. “The subject of that [alert] was subsequently determined not to have been involved in this incident.”

Wilson did not elaborate in the news release, but later issued a second release that explained a man they contacted had been “cleared and ruled out as a suspect.” The later news release also said investigators believed the crash involved five cars, as opposed to four cars they had identified earlier.

Investigators are asking that anyone who witnessed the suspect vehicle after the traffic crash, the occupants of the vehicle or has any information related to this investigation, to contact State Police Sergeant Andrew Jorgenson at 505-490-3871 or agent Wyatt Harwell at 505-316-5254.