MDC: Guard in crash wants county to pay

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - An assistant chief at the Metro Detention Center was driving on the dangerous road out to the jail last fall when he says he saw a man on a motorcycle doing bad things. So, the chief turned on his vehicle's emergency lights to alert other drivers. The man on the motorcycle was a jail guard and what happened next has him threatening to sue the county.

“The road is very dangerous,” MDC Chief Ramon Rustin said by phone Thursday.

He was talking about Shelly Drive; it's the road leading to the city dump and jail.

“I have sent out emails warning our officers to not pass on the road,” Rustin said.

It's a no passing area, with a speed limit of 45. But, often the rules of the road are thrown aside, like last October. MDC officials say employee Brett Goupil was on his motorcycle swerving through traffic and passing people in the no passing area.

A few cars in front of him was Assistant Chief Ruben Padilla. 

Padilla says he noticed the man riding the motorcycle breaking the rules, so flipped on his lights to alert drivers coming up.

Rustin told KRQE News 13 that when Goupil say Padilla he tried to pull over.

“There was a lot of gravel and stuff and the officer pulled over and laid down his motorcycle.”

Goupil is demanding the county cover $7,500 in damages to his bike. Chief Rustin says Padilla was trying to stop a disaster from happening.

A disaster like the one in 2004, when a corrections officer who was late for work was driving 77 miles an hour down Shelly and ran a stop sign, t-boning and killing another driver.

Rustin says his staff is doing everything they can to make sure MDC employees follow the rules too. But he knows, "There are just some officers where don't head our warnings and they make the road very dangerous.”

The family of the victim in the 2004 crash caused by the speeding guard sued the county and was awarded $2-million; although that's been disputed.