Stolen Road Ranger truck slams into Hialeah condo building

AUGUST 7, 2013

BY GLENDA ORTEGA

Reynaldo Aspuro, fast asleep in his Hialeah apartment with his wife and 3-year-old granddaughter, didn’t expect to be jolted out of bed by a real nightmare.

“It sounded like an explosion,” Aspuro, 69, said. “We were scared.”

The source of their rude awakening: a stolen tow truck rushing off from police, speeding out of control and slamming into their apartment building.

The crash happened at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Saint Andrews Condo at West 16th Avenue and 44th Place, just two blocks from the building where a mass shooting last week ended with seven people dead.

The Road Ranger truck that hit the building was operated by the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority. At the wheel: Daniel Lorido, 21. Police say he wasn’t the good Samaritan who comes to the aid of broken-down cars on South Florida highways, but rather a car-jacking suspect who took the truck from the regular driver.