Mexican Immigrant Fleeing Hillsborough County Deputy Shot Dead

The wife of the man shot to death last Friday by a Hillsborough County deputy refuses to believe he tried to attack the officer. At their Ruskin home Saturday, April Lopez said her husband, whom she called Herman, was an illegal Mexican immigrant who became terrified of being deported after a deputy caught him speeding through a Wimauma neighborhood. The 31-year-old driver led deputies on a two-mile pursuit before crashing his pickup into two patrol cars. Saturday morning, sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway released the driver's name as Sergio Lopez-Flores. Callaway said Lopez-Flores had a small amount of marijuana with him when he sped past a Hillsborough County deputy trying to wave him down and later pulled a knife on Deputy Daryl Bowden before the officer shot him at least twice. After the crash, Callaway said, Lopez-Flores climbed out of his overturned truck in the median of U.S. 301 north of Highway 674 and continued to approach Bowden with the knife before he was shot. Lopez-Flores was pronounced dead at Tampa General Hospital. An autopsy was scheduled for Saturday. It could take weeks for results to be released. April Lopez, 33, married her husband just two days before the shooting. They have a 19-month-old daughter. [MORE]