Military police officer charged with murder in alleged DUI crash that killed La Mesa police officer

A 38-year-old military police officer allegedly got drunk at a bar before getting behind the wheel and killing a La Mesa police officer in an alleged DUI crash last week, prosecutors said Thursday.

Antonio Abel Alcantar, a U.S. Navy master-at-arms with 11 years of service, pleaded not guilty to one count of murder and one count of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated during an arraignment hearing in San Diego Superior Court. A special allegation of causing great bodily injury was added to the latter charge.

Investigators said Alcantar had a blood-alcohol level of 0.16% — two times the legal driving limit — after the Toyota Camry he was allegedly driving struck La Mesa police Officer Lauren Craven on Oct. 20. Craven, 25, who was on duty at the time, had pulled over on Interstate 8 near Waring Road to help with a separate crash that had happened moments prior. Another driver at the scene, 19-year-old De’Veonte Morris, also died.

As of Thursday, the charges levied against Alcantar are directly connected only to Craven’s death. Prosecutors have not brought charges against the suspect in connection with Morris’ death, explaining that his cause of death remains under investigation.

Deputy District Attorney Spencer Sharpe said that the murder charge was warranted because of Alcantar’s job as a military police officer.

“He has gone through specific training and has specific duties that made him uniquely aware of the danger to human life that drinking and driving poses,” Sharpe said. “But he did it anyway.”

Alcantar, a San Diego resident, had been free on $110,000 bail after his arrest last week, but Judge Euketa Oliver found him to be a danger to the public and remanded him back into sheriff’s custody in lieu of $1 million bail.

Defense attorney Samantha Greene argued against the higher bail, saying her client has no prior convictions, is a decorated member of the military and had already begun psychiatric and substance abuse counseling. She also said that bail, and the case, should not be handled like a regular murder trial.

“This isn’t the same exact situation as somebody intentionally going out and shooting or stabbing someone multiple times,” Greene argued. “This was a DUI that led to the extremely unfortunate death of another human being.”

The downtown courtroom was filled Thursday with Craven’s family and friends, as well as dozens of the fallen officer’s colleagues. The packed gallery was silent when Alcantar, dressed in a suit and slacks, entered with his defense attorneys.

Sharpe alleged that Alcantar was out drinking with a friend at a Normal Heights bar in the hours leading up to the crash. After leaving the bar, he walked to his friend’s nearby house, and from there Alcantar then made the decision to drive home, the prosecutor alleged.

At the same time, Craven had just finished transporting someone she had arrested to jail when she received a report of a rollover crash involving two vehicles on the freeway, Sharpe said. She arrived at the scene, found the crash in the far left lane and parked her police vehicle in the second-to-left lane.

Her body-worn camera shows her exiting her vehicle, going to render medical aid to Morris, and then pulling two injured people lying in the roadway to safety, the prosecutor said.

“She literally saves their lives by seconds, and then she moves back to Mr. Morris to try and render aid to him,” Sharpe said. “And that’s when the defendant’s vehicle plowed into the collision scene at freeway speeds in the fast lane, struck Officer Craven and the other vehicles.”

According to Sharpe, Alcantar was recorded on another vehicle’s camera approaching the crash site. Unlike the other vehicles that yielded to the officer’s vehicle, which had its emergency lights on, the Camry did not appear to slow down in the recording, he said.

“He makes no attempt at all to avoid the emergency scene … that is required by law,” Sharpe said.

It’s not until he is within a few feet of Craven that his brake lights flash, Sharpe said.

Charging a fatal DUI as murder in California often happens when the defendant has a prior DUI. Alcantar’s other defense attorney, Dan Greene, called it “less common” to charge someone with murder in a DUI-crash case when the defendant does not have priors.

Greene said after the hearing that no one should condone drunken driving and called the case tragic for the families and communities that were affected. But he also asked the community to understand the context behind the crash.

“There’s very little that separates this case, charged as a murder case, from the thousands of other cases that happen each year where good, ordinary, law-abiding people get a DUI,” he said. “It’s important to know that this collision did not happen on the shoulder of the road or into a building; the collision occurred on a highway where people — sober or otherwise — expect to be able to drive without impediment.”

Dan Greene also said the reason that possible charges connected to the second death had not been filed against his client as of Thursday was because the cause and factors leading to Morris’ death had not yet been fully determined.

“There’s a lot that needs to come out in this case, and we appreciate everyone reserving judgment until that happens,” he said.

Alcantar faces a maximum sentence of life without parole if sentenced as charged.