The needless death of Delmy Alvarez

Until last month, all Marta Lopez knew from Orlando police was that a reckless driver ran a red light downtown near the Amway Center the night of Feb. 10, 2023, killing her daughter, Delmy “Patty” Alvarez.

But the cops didn’t tell Lopez, 66, anything close to the whole story.

The reckless driver was trying to outrun police when his white Lexus smashed into the Honda Civic driven by Lopez’ 28-year-old daughter, a mother of two. The Lexus and a police SUV topped 60 mph on city streets, running stop signs and red lights during a dangerous chase in blatant violation of the Orlando Police Department’s pursuit policy, the agency’s own internal review determined.

Police have said nothing publicly about the fatal crash at West Anderson Street and Parramore Avenue. They did not issue a media release. They did not volunteer their role in the crash to Marta Lopez. For months they denied an Orlando Sentinel request for records, claiming an “active investigation” exemption, even though  the probe of the officer who drove the SUV has long been concluded.

Documents ultimately provided to the newspaper were heavily redacted, with paragraphs and even entire pages blacked out.

The year-plus-long search for the truth about the death of Delmy Alvarez is a twisting tale that raises tough questions about how the Orlando Police Department protects its city, and how it takes responsibility for its mistakes – to the public, to those who oversee its activities, and most importantly to those it hurts.

This article can tell only part of that story, pieced together from interviews and documents provided to the Sentinel and obtained from third parties. Whether the rest is revealed remains in the hands of OPD, which would not grant an interview or respond to written questions.

Lopez herself began to suspect the truth a year ago.  She said the first mention of a police pursuit came from Gina Mustacchio, Alvarez’ friend and passenger in the Honda who was critically injured in the crash.

Through her attorney, Mustacchio declined to talk, and it’s not clear how she found out. The attorney told the Sentinel vaguely that she later learned of the chase not from police, but family and friends.

As Marta Lopez describes it, she finally confronted the crash investigator in July with questions about a police chase and the response spoke volumes.

“Who told you?” she remembers him saying.

“They never say nothing,” Lopez said. “Maybe they know something was wrong with that.”

THE CHASE

The Lexus caught the attention of Orlando police officer Esequiel Colon about 10:18 p.m. Feb. 10, 2023, when the two-door car, traveling about 30 mph, ran a red light at Westmoreland Drive and South Street in Parramore where Colon was on Friday night patrol in a marked Ford Explorer.

Colon decided to follow what he would term a “Signal 12,” radio code for a reckless vehicle.

“Once you go through a red light, I perceive it as driving recklessly,” the officer said in an interview he gave under oath to an Internal Affairs (IA) investigator about two months after the crash.

Most details of the pursuit were removed from documents police provided to the Sentinel, in what the news organization’s attorney said was a clear flouting of the state’s Sunshine Law. But Mark Packo, the lawyer representing Mustacchio as she seeks compensation for her injuries from the city of Orlando, furnished unredacted versions of some of them that he obtained through the legal discovery process.

Colon, who had been with OPD about 18 months, slid his SUV behind the Lexus and both, at first, traveled “normal speeds,” according to the IA report, as Colon tried to make out the license tag. The Lexus then turned east at the next intersection onto Jackson Street, an uneven brick residential street not far from Orlando City’s soccer stadium.

Colon turned east on Jackson, too.

The Lexus sped up immediately and so did the tailing police SUV, running without emergency lights or siren, as it would through the entire chase. Both quickly hit 40 then 60 mph, double the speed limit, barreling through a stop sign at Lee Avenue.  During the course of the chase they passed pedestrians and at least one bicyclist, but Colon kept on, despite the department guideline discouraging such pursuits “to not needlessly endanger the public.”

The Lexus whipped around a car at a stop sign at Jackson and Parramore Avenue, turning south on Parramore. Colon slammed on his brakes to avoid rear-ending the same car, then gave chase again.

Both the Lexus and police SUV ran a red light on Parramore at South Street.

Then, horribly, the chase ended.

The Lexus rocketed through a red light at West Anderson, blasting into the driver’s side of the Honda, which started into the intersection when the light turned green for Alvarez. The impact shoved the Honda against the Bethel Missionary Baptist Church on the southeast corner of the intersection. Colon alerted dispatch of the crash, finally turned on his Ford Explorer’s overhead emergency lights and siren and climbed from the police vehicle.

The fleeing motorist, identified in a crash report as Jaicarious Grace, 27, staggered from the wreckage of the Lexus with a broken thigh bone and lay on the pavement. Colon, gun drawn, ordered Grace to crawl to him.

“Why were you driving so fast?” the officer demanded. “What did you do?”

As it turned out, Grace had an extensive police record dating back a decade, including fleeing police in a stolen car and ramming a police vehicle. He was locked up four years for those crimes. Court records also show he’d been jailed on charges of possessing hydrocodone, methamphetamine and marijuana, all of which were later dropped.

A month after the fatal crash, officers found three pounds of a “green leafy substance” in a duffle bag in the wreckage of the Lexus, stored at a tow yard.

But Colon knew none of that during the incident. He never captured the tag number for the Lexus, which would have returned the name of a relative of Grace.

The chase, which lasted 47 seconds and covered about a half mile, was captured on red-light cameras and other security cameras in Parramore monitored by police, according to the IA report.

Colon’s body-worn camera recorded his interaction with the driver of the Lexus.

THE REVIEW

For decades, police have understood the dangers of high-speed pursuits and many agencies, like OPD, have strict policies to deter them. Orlando’s has been a model for others to copy, said Geoff Alpert, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina and nationally  regarded as an expert on police pursuits.

He served as a consultant to the Orlando panel which drafted OPD’s first policy in 2004.

Alpert said chases often have tragic consequences for motorists or pedestrians.

“When police get into pursuits like this, 61 miles an hour on a residential street, the probability of something bad and unintended happening increases,” said Alpert, who was provided with records detailing the chase.

Alpert said stopping a fleeing vehicle has added importance if an officer is trying to apprehend someone suspected of murder, rape or another violent crime. “But for a traffic offense, really what value is it?” he said. “Why would you put my family or your family at risk for someone running a red light?”

OPD’s vehicle pursuits and apprehension policy, revised in 2022, emphasizes that point.

It reads:

“Officers will always consider the safety of the public and the hazards of a vehicle pursuit, to not needlessly endanger the public, law enforcement employees, or the violator. Officers deciding to engage in pursuit must balance the need to stop a suspect against the potential threat to everyone involved or affected by the pursuit and, if not caught, the community would continue to be at an increased level of danger. A vehicle pursuit is justified only when the necessity of immediate apprehension outweighs the level of danger created by the pursuit.”

Police realized almost immediately, from an initial “due-diligence” review, that Colon’s chase of Grace did not meet the dictates of the policy, documents indicate. An internal investigation was launched officially the day after the crash.

Over the following weeks, inspector Amanda Dawson gathered and reviewed evidence. There was ample video because of the security cameras stationed throughout the area, although the time stamps were incorrect on many of them and it proved challenging to assemble an authoritative timeline. A location device in Colon’s SUV, standard in police vehicles, helped resolve discrepancies.

Witness interviews were little help. Grace refused to cooperate. Mustacchio remembered only vague details from earlier in the evening – she and Alvarez had left the house where they lived to run errands and get some food. They went to a Game Stop. She could offer nothing about the crash.

Finally, on April 18, 2023, police interviewed the officer, with a police union attorney present. About two weeks prior to that interview, Colon was allowed to review all the evidence they had gathered.

Dawson reminded him at the beginning of the interview that it concerned “administrative matters only” and that none of his answers could be used in a criminal proceeding against him. In the 20-minute interview, Colon described why he initiated the chase and how it unfolded, ending with the crash, which he reported as soon as it happened.

He is asked whether he took any actions to initiate a traffic stop at any point during the pursuit, which he clarifies as whether he turned on his lights, and then says no.

He is asked whether he had reason to believe the driver of the Lexus had committed a forcible felony, which could justify a chase. He says no.

Finally, he is asked whether the situation “met the criteria for a vehicle pursuit.” He says no.

Never is Colon asked to explain that series of answers.

At the conclusion of its investigation, OPD found Colon was wrong to pursue the Lexus, a violation of the department’s pursuit policy that “should be considered serious in nature.” But the officer’s supervisor, Lt. Charles Holmes, wrote in a memo to Deputy Police Chief Alejandro Caro that Colon “intended to cease his actions prior to the suspect vehicle crashing,” a claim Colon never makes in the unredacted transcript of his official interview. Further “there is no evidence Officer Colon’s actions contributed to the crash.”

If there had been such evidence, Holmes continued, a “significantly greater” penalty might be warranted. But based on internal precedent, Colon’s lack of previous discipline in his 15-month tenure with the department, and guidelines in the police union contract, Holmes considered a 40-hour suspension appropriate. Colon was allowed to forfeit a week of vacation rather than lose his pay.

There is no indication the department chose to forward the case to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which often investigates officer-caused fatalities, then submits its findings to local state attorneys for consideration.

Experts who reviewed investigative materials questioned OPD’s conclusions.

“Logically, that does not support the rationale for having a good chase policy, and Orlando PD has a good policy,” said retired Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan, who serves on the advisory board of PursuitSAFETY, a not-for-profit that works to discourage deadly police pursuits. “Had the officer followed policy, the suspect might, and I repeat ‘might,’ have driven differently, and that is what we all want.”

According to Mustacchio’s lawsuit, there’s no ‘might’ about it: The officer’s pursuit “ultimately caused or contributed to” the fatal crash.

Alpert, the criminology professor who worked with OPD on its policy, said the discipline seemed insufficient to the incident. “You have a policy that is clear: don’t do it,” he said. “You need to enforce it.”

Told that OPD had kept the chase quiet, including in its interactions with Marta Lopez, Alpert said police should be transparent with the public about vehicle pursuits, especially if they harm innocent, uninvolved motorists or pedestrians.

“This and improper use of force are the two things that most often cost police departments money and ruin their reputation for transparency,” he said of vehicle pursuits. “These should be brought out into the sunlight so people understand it.”

Jacinta Gau, a professor of criminal justice at UCF’s College of Community Innovation and Education, said OPD’s policy has one clear weakness: It appears to leave the decision to pursue up to the officer, which not all policies do.

“Some pursuit policies require the officer to first get a supervisor’s approval,” she said.

THE AFTERMATH

Even before her daughter’s death, Marta Lopez’ life had been filled with challenges and tragedy. Delmy Alvarez, whom she always referred to as Patty from her middle name Patricia, was one of the bright spots.

A mother of five, Lopez has twice beaten cancer, lost a baby boy to an untreatable congenital condition within a day of his birth, and cares for an adult daughter struggling to recover from a stroke.

Lopez also is now the primary care-giver for Patty’s 6-year-old daughter, Marianna, who started first grade this month in Orange County Public Schools. Patty’s son, Jayden, 12, lives with his father in Volusia County. Lopez said she greatly misses her grandson and she and the kids all miss their mom.

“We don’t always agree,” she recalled of Patty. “But she was a good mother, a good person.”

Her daughter often worked two jobs to support the children, who have different dads. Over the years, she was a Starbucks barista, a nurse’s aide, a sales associate at a Michael Kors outlet store and a server at Nature’s Table.

A Facebook memory from Patty popped up recently on her mother’s feed — a post from eight years ago that made Lopez both laugh and cry. In it, Patty offered support to her mother, reeling after a second cancer diagnosis.

“I know you’re strong and I know once again you will beat cancer’s ass,” Patty wrote. “I know I’m not always the perfect daughter and I know I stress you out with all the stuff I do…but just know I love you so much and I’m proud to call you my mommah bear. You are a strong woman and we will get thru this all together!”

Lopez said months went by after the crash without updates from police, as she waited to hear if Jaicarious Grace would be charged. Although reviews of fatal traffic accidents are generally straightforward, he has not been.

Annoyed by the lack of communication, Lopez said she arranged last month to speak by phone through a translator with the traffic homicide investigator, Cpl. Edward Mazur. When he didn’t call her as promised, she called him and demanded to know if police had chased the Lexus.

As she recalls it, Mazur, through a translator, said yes. Then he asked, “Who told you?”

“Now I feel like they killed my daughter,” Lopez said. She has recently hired an attorney.

Scrolling through her texts recently, Marta Lopez found the family’s final interaction with Patty.

About 20 minutes before the crash, Patty answered a text from Jayden, who used his grandmother’s phone to send his mom a picture of a piece of Publix chocolate cake he found in the refrigerator and ask if he could have it before bed. She said yes.

He texted back, “Yay.”

It is the last of the memories they have. What is left now is to understand.

shudak@orlandosentinel.com

Staff writer Cristóbal Reyes contributed to this report.