ALBUQUERQUE, NM - A former police officer has been sentenced for causing a car accident that killed two people in Bernalillo County on May 1, 2021, reports KOB.
30-year-old Brandon Barber, an off-duty officer with the Cuba Police Department at the time of the incident, pleaded guilty in December to two counts of vehicular homicide while intoxicated. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison with five years of probation.
The crash occurred on Interstate 25 near the Tramway exit north of Albuquerque. Authorities said Barber was driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck north in the southbound lanes of I-25 at about 2 a.m. when he crashed head-on into a southbound GMC Yukon SUV.
Two men in the Yukon, 21-year-old Diego Arellano and 50-year-old Alfredo Escaname Hernandez, were pronounced dead at the scene. Arellano's brother, Fernando Arellano, was severely injured. A partially consumed bottle of liquor was found in Barber's vehicle, deputies said.
Barber, a former captain with the New Mexico National Guard, also pleaded guilty to great bodily harm by vehicle and a misdemeanor charge of open container, our Albuquerque car accident attorney adds.
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