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A San Benito police officer is in the hospital after being struck by a vehicle while conducting traffic control early Sunday morning.
The city said in a news release that a passerby at around 1:30 a.m. informed officers — who were investigating an unrelated crash on South Expressway 83 near the Oscar Williams Road overpass — of the incident.
“While officers were on scene, they were informed by a passing motorist that an officer conducting traffic control further down on the expressway had been struck by a vehicle,” the city said in the release.”
The officer who was struck, and whose identity is being withheld by the city, was found lying in the road and was later transported to Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen with “several fractures and other injuries.”
The injured officer is currently in stable condition, according to the release.
The driver of the vehicle that struck the officer, Yasser Ismail Abu Awwad Martinez, 21, of Brownsville, stayed at the scene and was subsequently charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Martinez is currently out on a $75,000 bond.
Police are “still investigating if drugs or alcohol played a factor in the collision.”
