Driver smoked marijuana oil the night before crash that killed eight farm workers – KIRO 7 News Seattle

Florida Highway Patrol officials said Howard was driving his 2001 Ford Ranger on State Road 40 Tuesday morning when he veered toward the center line and struck a 2010 International bus carrying more than 50 farm workers.

“Initial investigations have revealed that the two vehicles collided in a side collision,” police said in a statement. “After the collision, the bus left the road, went through a fence and overturned.”

Eight of the workers died. At least 40 workers were injured.

The Associated Press reported that Howard was arrested after failing several field sobriety tests.

An arrest report identified six of the dead men, according to CNN. They are Evarado Ventura Hernández, 30; Cristian Salazar Villeda, 24; Alfredo Tovar Sanchez, 20; Isaías Miranda Pascal, 21; José Heriberto Fraga Acosta, 27, and Manuel Perez Ríos, 46.

According to the AP, the workers were on their way to work in a watermelon field at Cannon Farms in Dunnellon. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday that 44 of the men on the bus were Mexican citizens.

CNN reported that Howard told investigators he smoked marijuana oil with a friend the night before the accident. He also admitted taking three prescription medications before bed around 11:30 p.m

Howard said he couldn’t remember how the accident occurred, but said he was “driving very carefully” because he was involved in a traffic accident a few days before the fatal bus crash.

A judge rejected Howard bond Wednesday, in part because of his long-standing driving convictions. He was convicted in 2006 of leaving the scene of an accident.

In 2013 and 2018, he was convicted of driving with a revoked license, and in 2019 he was convicted again of leaving the scene of an accident involving property damage, CNN reported.

According to the AP, at least one of his allegations involved crossing the center line while driving. His driver’s license has been revoked at least three times, including once in 2021, because he made too many traffic charges in a year.

Howard was also convicted of grand larceny in 2013, for which he received a suspended sentence. In 2014, his probation was revoked after he tested positive for cocaine, the AP reported.

The victims’ families were devastated as they mourned in their homes in Mexico this week. Yamilet Pérez Ríos, 14, cried as she spoke about her father, Manuel Pérez Ríos.

“He set out a week ago to look for a better life for me and my mother,” the teenager told the AP. “Now they say my father is dead.”

The father of four children came from a poor but hard-working farming family. According to his wife, he first came to the United States to work on a temporary visa.

“He had high hopes,” Magdalena Rios said. “He wanted to work.”

Salazar Villeda leaves behind a five-year-old daughter and a wife he married in March, a friend, Gamaliel Marcel, told the news service.

“I feel so bad, especially because I knew him my whole life,” Marcel said from Tallahassee. “He was always the most respectful, but he would crack a smile when you needed one.”

Rosalina Hernández Martínez told the AP that her son, Evarado Ventura Hernández, told her that his work in Florida was difficult but that he was happy.

“It hurts,” she said. “A piece of my heart is gone.”