Good Samaritan chased down suspect accused of hitting officer

A Denton County corrections officer will undergo more surgeries this week following a motorcycle crash that left him with several broken bones.

Oscar Salmaron, the other driver involved, is charged with intoxication assault. The collision happened at the intersection of Mockingbird and McKinney in Denton, in front of a fire station.

While some witnesses attended to the wounded officer, Jim Terry, witness Benito Hernandez chased down Salmaron after he tried to drive away from the scene.

"I see the motorcycle in front and I was like, ‘He's going to hit it, he's going to hit it, he's going to hit it,’” Hernandez, 23, said. “The officer just went flying, it was just really bad."

Hernandez saw the crash from his truck. He saw Terry on the ground, critically injured.  Denton police said Salmaron, a 42-year-old illegal immigrant, was drunk and trying to get away.

“Someone was screaming, ‘He's getting away, he's getting away,” Hernandez said. “I said, ‘No he's not, he's going to go with me."

Hernandez got the chase on video. Video shows him chase Salmaron to an empty lot, then pin him against a barbed-wire fence with his truck.

“I just pinned him down with the truck and the fence so he couldn't get away,” Hernandez said. “He was saying, ‘Let me go, let me go’ and I was saying, ‘No you're going nowhere. You’re going with me.’”

Witness Brittany Dudley watched Hernandez chase down Salmaron.

“Very heroic,” Dudley said. “We need that in our community to feel safe, to know not all strangers are bad, not all people are bad."

Hernandez hopes others will act in a similar manner if they are in the same situation.

“I think anybody else would've done at least half of the things I did,” Hernandez said.