LAPLACE, Louisiana – Public officials from Louisiana and Arkansas are reportedly tied to a fatal traffic incident when a bus full of illegal immigrant laborers crashed on their way to flood cleanup zones.
The company which hired the illegal workers, WRS, is owned by local Louisiana Constable Eddie Schmidt, as well as David Wallace, a state legislator in Arkansas, according to WWL-TV.
The illegal immigrants were reportedly rounded up by the Arkansas-based company and headed to a potential job site in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to work on rebuilding efforts but crashed into the scene of another small car wreck where first-responders were working, as Breitbart Texas reported. The bus veered into the right lane, hitting three firemen who were investigating the original car wreck, bolting them nearly 30 to 40 feet over the guardrail and into the water below them.
The three firefighters were rescued by a ladder out of the canals by other first responders.
Tragically, 36 year-old St. John District Fire Chief Spencer Chauvin of Gramercy, Louisiana was killed, as well as 21 year-old Jermaine Starr of Moss Point, Mississippi, who was in another vehicle that was hit by the bus.
The driver, Denis Yasmir Amaya Rodriguez, admitted to police that he was in the country illegally and did not have a driver’s license, yet had apparently been working for the company for over a year.
It is still unclear why Rodriguez was chosen to drive the bus without a driver’s license.
Court records show Rodriguez was actually pulled over in the area on August 5 for driving without a license, though his immigration status was apparently not looked into.
Wallace claims he did not know the workers and Rodriguez were illegal immigrants, saying that he would not have hired the workers had. It is unclear if the company checked the workers’ immigration status.
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.