Driver in fatal Pierce County wreck was allegedly triple the legal alcohol limit
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Prosecutors charged a 27-year-old man with vehicular homicide and reckless driving.
- Toxicology found 0.26 BAC, more than triple Washington’s 0.08 legal limit.
- Evidence allegedly shows the man was speeding, drove erratically and ran a stop sign.
Pierce County prosecutors charged a man with vehicular homicide for allegedly driving drunk last month when he fatally struck a woman’s vehicle while she was backing into her driveway.
Luis Antonio Alarcon-Lara, 27, was charged in Superior Court on Wednesday for the Nov. 30 incident in the Midland area. Prosecutors also accused him of reckless driving.
Alarcon-Lara was summoned to appear for arraignment Jan. 14 to enter a plea to those felony charges. A defense attorney for the man was not yet listed in court records.
Toxicology testing showed the defendant’s blood-alcohol level was 0.26 when his blood was drawn after the wreck, according to charging documents. That’s more than triple the legal limit in Washington, 0.08.
The 69-year-old woman killed in the incident has not been publicly identified by the Medical Examiner’s Office. Deputies said she was coming home from work when she was T-boned.
Surveillance video from a nearby business allegedly showed Alarcon-Lara driving erratically before the collision. A police report from the Sheriff’s Office included in charging documents said a camera captured his Honda CRV run a stop sign at 85th Street and Golden Given Road East while traveling south, less than a half-mile from where the incident occurred.
Alarcon-Lara continued driving south on Golden Given Road, and the video allegedly showed him drift into the oncoming traffic lane, then jerk back into his lane before he went out of camera view. The video captured the sound of the collision, and a deputy said it sounded like the defendant was accelerating the entire time.
Deputies determined that the victim was backing into her driveway in a Honda Accord when Alarcon-Lara drove onto the west shoulder and hit the driver’s side of the vehicle, according to a police report.
The speed limit in the area is 35 mph. Deputies wrote in the report that Alarcon-Lara appeared to be driving “significantly faster” than the limit based on scene observations, vehicle damage, the dry roadway and visible skid marks.
The victim was removed from her vehicle, and police reports state a citizen performed CPR before Fire Department personnel took over, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Alarcon-Lara was trapped in his car underneath the steering wheel and suffered serious injuries. According to a police report, large items behind the driver’s seat prevented the seat from being moved backward, and while Fire Department personnel were clearing away the items, a deputy noticed a large bottle of an “intoxicating beverage” with a broken seal.
Treatment records from Central Pierce Fire & Rescue allegedly said that Fire Department personnel smelled ethyl alcohol or ethanol on Alarcon-Lara’s breath when he was moved from the car to a gurney.
Charging documents said Alarcon-Lara was arrested in 2017 on suspicion of unlawful possession of a controlled substance and reckless driving. It’s unclear where Alarcon-Lara was arrested. Pierce County court records don’t show that he has any prior felony convictions.
