By David Hernandez
The San Diego Union-Tribune
SAN DIEGO — Six men who sprang into action when a California Highway Patrol officer was shot during a struggle with a driver on Interstate 8 in Mission Valley were recognized Thursday for their actions during the “dangerous and unpredictable situation.”
CHP Border Division Chief Scott Parker said the men did not hesitate to help Officer Tony Pacheco the evening of April 27. Some of the men used their personal belongings — a sweater and backpack straps — as tourniquets. One of the men requested help on the officer’s radio and called the officer’s wife. Others restrained the driver until backup officers arrived.
The suspect, Yuhao Du, 25, was arrested and later charged with several felonies including attempted murder of a peace officer. Du, a UC San Diego physics graduate student from China, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in San Diego Superior Court.
Parker said the actions of the good Samaritans were “highly exceptional and commendable,” in what was a dangerous and unpredictable situation. He said the men who stepped up to help likely saved Pacheco’s life.
Their actions are “a testament to what the community thinks of law enforcement and how they’re willing to risk their safety to help one of us,” Parker added.
The group was recognized in front of CHP officers and the officers’ families during a CHP employee appreciation event at Sonrise Church in Santee. Parker presented the group with the Superior Effort Act, one of the CHP’s highest honors for civilians, on behalf of CHP Commissioner Amanda Ray.
According to the CHP, the shooting occurred after Pacheco walked up to a crashed vehicle along the center divider on eastbound I-8 near the Interstate 805 overpass. The CHP alleged that the driver of the disabled vehicle, later identified as Du, suddenly lunged for the officer’s gun without provocation. The two men struggled, and the gun was fired.
Pacheco was struck in his right thigh.
In interviews after the ceremony Thursday, some of the good Samaritans recounted their efforts to help Pacheco.
Floriberto Pineda Zayago, a carpenter who lives in Spring Valley, was on his way home with his wife after an appointment in Old Town when they happened upon the two men struggling on the ground. Pineda Zayago said the officer appeared to be underneath the other person. Pineda Zayago’s wife pulled the car over, and he rushed to help the officer.
Pineda Zayago said he didn’t think twice before taking action because law enforcement officers “risk their lives for us every day, for us and for our children.”
Hunter Nemeth, a nurse at Sharp Grossmont hospital, was on his way to work a night shift when he saw the slow traffic and the vehicle crashed along the center divider. Two men were holding another man — the suspect — against the center divider, Nemeth said.
Meanwhile the officer was yelling that he had been shot. He was bleeding profusely, Nemeth said.
With the help of others at the scene, Nemeth cut off the straps on his backpack and used them as tourniquets, he said. They also used the officer’s belt as another tourniquet.
“I kind of had a feeling with the amount of blood he was losing and everything that had he not had a tourniquet placed, he might not have made it,” Nemeth said. He added that it meant more to him that he was able to help after he learned that the officer has two small children and his wife is pregnant.
Loay Yousif, a business owner who lives in El Cajon, said he was on his way home from SeaWorld with his wife and their three children when they encountered the traffic. When he saw the struggle between the officer and the driver, he pulled over immediately, he said.
Yousif called 911 and grabbed Pacheco’s radio to summon help, radioing the law enforcement code 11-99, which signals that an officer needs help.
Meanwhile the officer wanted to call his wife, Yousif said, so he grabbed the officer’s cellphone and made the call. The couple talked briefly.
Pacheco told his wife he had been shot. She was frantic and Pacheco was in “horrible pain,” Yousif said.
Yousif and Nemeth said everyone who helped played an important role.
“Each and everyone of us did their own part,” Yousif said. “It’s like a hospital — this guy has to get scissors, this guy has to get a bandage, so literally each and every one of us, we did our job.”
The other men recognized at the Thursday event were James Alan Carver, who assisted with first aid and used Pacheco’s handcuffs to restrain the driver; Francisco Soto-Sesma, who helped restrain the driver; and Travis Almond, who helped with first aid — he wrapped a sweatshirt around the officer’s leg — and secured the handgun in his vehicle until other officers arrived.
Du remains held in jail without bail while his case is pending.
After Du’s arraignment in San Diego Superior Court last month, his attorney declined to discuss whether Du had been diagnosed with a mental illness but did say he received medication in jail.
A preliminary hearing in Du’s case is slated for August. He faces a potential sentence of life in prison if he is convicted.
If the case goes to trial, and a jury finds Du guilty and legally insane at the time of the incident — meaning, in part, that he could not distinguish right from wrong — he would likely be sent to a state hospital instead of prison.
Staff writer Teri Figueroa contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.
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