By CYNTHIA R. FAGEN
June 4, 2008
Riders and bikes are hurled into the air as a drunken driver, asleep at the wheel, plows into a pack of racing cyclists on a highway near the US-Mexico border.
One rider was killed and 14 others were injured in the Sunday-morning carnage in Matamoros, Mexico, authorities said.
Juan Campos, 28, of Brownsville, Texas, was driving a 1989 Mercury Grand Marquis when he swerved across highway lanes into the cyclists, police said.
They also believe the suspect was under the influence of drugs, as well as alcohol.
Campos was charged with killing Alejandro Alvarez, 37, a resident of Monterrey, Mexico.
The accident happened at around 8:30 a.m., about 15 minutes into the 21-mile race.
Among the injured was 14-year-old Edgar Omar Castro, also of Brownsville, who was listed in critical but stable condition yesterday at a Brownsville hospital.
The race, with a field of 452 cyclists, was called off after the crash.
