Major injury crash following police pursuit west of Modesto captured on Tesla cameras
Jessie Ixta was driving home from work in Byron to his home in Modesto earlier this week when he saw a terrible crash in his rear view mirror.
A vehicle he believes was being pursued by police crashed into another car on Highway 132 and McCracken Road, moments after he went through the intersection Monday afternoon.
The cameras on his Tesla captured the whole thing. He said it looked like the fleeing vehicle “disintegrated on impact.”
Indeed, there was significant damage to both vehicles involved and the suspect was seriously injured, according to California Highway Patrol Officer Tom Olsen.
He said the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office first tried to pull over the suspect at Highway 33 and McCracken, about a mile and a half south of the crash scene.
“The vehicle took off and blew through the intersection,” Olsen said. The suspect was driving a stolen Toyota north on McCracken and collided with a Ford pickup traveling east on Highway 132.
Olsen did not know the reason the sheriff’s deputy attempted to stop the Toyota, whether the deputy knew the vehicle was stolen at the time, or even if the deputy was actively pursuing the suspect when the crash occurred.
A Sheriff’s Office spokesperson on Friday said he could not reach the detective who is investigating the crash.
The suspect, 41-year-old Raul Salamaca, was taken to Doctors Medical Center.
The driver of the Ford, a 48-year-old Modesto man, suffered a laceration to his face and was taken to Memorial Medical Center.
