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Woman Says Man Accused of Ramming Pedestrians, Cars at San Ysidro POE was Fleeing for Life

Frank Stricker began to speed through the San Ysidro Port of Entry, running down five pedestrians, a dozen vendor booths and 17 cars, according to Mexican law enforcement officers.

The woman in the passenger's seat of a truck that ran down pedestrians, vendor booths and more than a dozen cars just south of the San Ysidro Port of Entry said that the driver was fleeing for his life. 

Summer Barber was released from a San Diego-area hospital and returned to Las Vegas, where she shared with Telemundo 20 a story that contradicted law enforcement's version about what happened Monday in Tijuana, Mexico

Barber and her boyfriend, 29-year-old Frank Stricker, had just arrived to Tijuana when they got onto the wrong road, one that would lead them out of the city.

The pair asked a stranger for help getting further into Tijuana. According to Barber, the man offered to drive their truck, a black Chevrolet Silverado, to where they wanted to go.

At some point while the man was driving the truck, they realized they were going in a direction they didn't want to go, Barber said. They demanded the man pull over and that's when several people, including a cop, started to swarm their truck.  

"The cop tells Frankie and me to get out of the car. I heard a gunshot," she described. "Frankie takes off right after I heard it and I ask him, "What the hell are you doing?"He goes, "If we stop this car we’re gonna die."

That's when Stricker began to speed through the San Ysidro Port of Entry, running down five pedestrians, a dozen vendor booths and 17 cars, according to Mexican law enforcement officers. 

Barber said Stricker did not hit anyone and actually made every effort to avoid people as they fled. 

"He’s telling everybody 'move, move,' he did not hit anyone, he was telling everyone to move," she said. 

Stricker, a U.S. citizen from Utah, is being held in Mexico and was charged Wednesday with attempted homicide and damage of property. 

Mario Martinez, Tijuana's police director, said the confrontation started when Stricker got into an altercation with a pedestrian. The suspect allegedly threatened a person with a razor on Avenida Manuel Márquez de León in the Zona Ríos.

When police approached the driver, he allegedly fled in his Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck toward the border crossing. 

Fresno resident Lori Ray said she witnessed what happened next.

"Locals, mostly vendors, people that were out on the streets, they had sticks and bats and all kinds of things, just waving them," she said. "They just beat the car, grabbed the people out of the car on to the ground."

She said the people with sticks and bats were beating the people who were inside the suspect's vehicle.

Municipal police arrested Stricker and he was turned over to federal investigators. 

According to the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department in Utah, the suspect has been arrested several times on charges of theft, possession of drugs and for violating his probation.

Summer said he has not been able to contact Stricker since he was detained. She has also not been able to communicate with the Tijuana authorities, she said. 

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