An Osceola County man is accused of shooting his ex-girlfriend during an high-speed car chase, causing a crash with a sheriff’s office vehicle that sent the girl, her driver and a deputy to the hospital.
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At around 11 p.m. Monday, Christian Andres Rivera, 21, of St. Cloud, began pursuing a white 2014 Mitsubishi Lancer driven by a 17-year-old boy and with Rivera’s ex-girlfriend, 17, as a passenger, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The Mitsubishi turned from Partin Settlement Road onto U.S. Highway 192 in an attempt to reach the safety of the sheriff’s office’s headquarters, but Rivera continued following in his 2006 BMW 330i and began shooting into the passenger side of the Mitsubishi, striking his ex-girlfriend, the release said.
As the Mitsubishi continued traveling in the highway’s westbound lanes, Rivera rammed it from behind, causing it to spiral out of control into the eastbound lanes where it collided with a pickup truck driven by a sheriff’s deputy responding to the chase, according to the release.
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That deputy was taken to the hospital and later released, but Rivera’s ex-girlfriend and her driver both remain at the hospital with serious injuries as of Tuesday afternoon. The girl suffered both a gunshot wound and injuries from the crash, while the boy only had injuries from the crash, the sheriff’s office said.
Rivera fled the scene via the Florida Turnpike and turned his headlights off to avoid detection. He went to a relative’s home in St. Cloud, where he was later arrested without incident on two counts of attempted murder, according to the release.
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