Last Updated on January 12, 2023 by CCAR Staff
Two weeks after a San Ysidro man was arrested in connection with a deadly bus crash in Yucaipa that killed eight people, specifics on why he was arrested and charged with eight felonies remain unknown.
Norberto Bravo Perez, 55, was arrested Nov. 18 and booked into the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga. The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office filed eight felony counts of vehicular manslaughter against Perez on Nov. 3.
“The totality of evidence referenced in the affidavit and detailed in the voluminous and thorough reports prepared by law enforcement will come out at the appropriate time during the court process,” District Attorney spokesman Christopher Lee said Tuesday.
Lee declined to comment on the facts supporting Perez’s arrest not included in his criminal case file.
Perez appeared in San Bernardino Superior Court on Tuesday, where a preliminary hearing was scheduled for Friday.
Though Perez remains behind bars with a bail set at $1 million and faces a maximum of 15 years in prison, authorities have not disclosed the reason for his arrest and the filing of criminal charges, referred to in the legal system as probable cause.
The only document produced by the court in support of Perez’s arrest was a 5-page accident report from the California Highway Patrol dated Feb. 3, 2013, the day of the deadly bus accident. That report only details the time, location and circumstances of the accident.
San Bernardino Superior Court spokesman Dennis Smith maintained that the traffic accident report was in fact the probable cause warranting Perez’s arrest.
“To be clear, the information used to determine probable cause was provided by (Deputy District Attorney Britt Imes) to the court,” Smith said.
The CHP report states that passengers of the bus told investigators it had lost its braking capability about 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 3, 2013. The tour bus was owned by the National City-based company Scapadas Magicas, near the Mexican border.
Perez, an employee at Scapadas Magicas, was ferrying Mexican nationals back to Tijuana after a trip to Big Bear Lake when the crash occurred.
As the bus descended Highway 38 toward Yucaipa, the brakes failed and the bus careened down the mountain. It struck a 2007 Saturn then overturned when Perez failed to negotiate a curve in the road, according to the CHP report.
As the bus slid on its side down the highway, it also struck a dirt embankment, then collided with a Ford F-150 pickup hauling a box trailer. Several people were ejected from the bus. Seven passengers were killed as well as a man driving the pickup, Fred Baily Richardson.
Perez and 30 of the remaining 31 passengers suffered minor to major injuries, according to the CHP report, which also noted that at the time of the accident Perez held a valid class B driver’s license and had a clean driving record.
A cluster of lawsuits filed in May 2013 revealed that Perez was aware of the failing brakes throughout the day during the Big Bear Lake trip and had contacted Scapadas Magicas twice during the day to report problems with the brakes. Each time, Perez’s employers told him to continue the trip.
“Said defendants knew that traveling down the steep and long route from Big Bear California would require a properly functioning braking system and that any failures in the braking system would cause the bus to crash and injure and/or kill passengers on the bus and others on the roadway,” according to one of the lawsuits.
