Daniel Barajas was traveling from Kentucky to Texas to see his newborn niece and nephew, but he never got to meet them.
The 38-year-old from Albuquerque, N.M., was sleeping in his vehicle while parked on an on-ramp around 4:35 a.m. on Jan. 14, 2022, according to reports from the Saline County sheriff's office. He was awakened by sheriff's deputies who questioned him and said he seemed disoriented and to be hallucinating. About 90 minutes later, he was struck by three vehicles after walking onto the eastbound lanes of the interstate, authorities said.
Barajas' two sisters, a civil rights attorney and the League of United Latin American Citizens said during a news conference livestreamed from Dallas on Tuesday that nothing in the official crash reports made sense to them -- that Barajas was sleeping in his car in the middle of an on-ramp, that he appeared to be hallucinating and in spite of being cleared of possession of or under the influence of drugs, he still wasn't allowed to get back into his car and drive away.
"The police reports are worthless," Chicago-based civil rights attorney Mike Laux said. "They are not worth the paper they're printed on."
Barajas was a welder who regularly traveled the country for jobs. He was an experienced and smart traveler who knew not to sleep in a car parked on an on-ramp, Laux said.
Additionally, Barajas' keys, cellphone and wallet were never found, attorneys said. The same goes for a money box that he was carrying with him.
Photographs taken by the Saline County coroner's office have also been lost, Laux said. He added that a toxicology report was not performed "due to the damage" to Barajas' body.
Domingo Garcia, a personal-injury attorney in Texas, said Barajas was questioned and targeted by law enforcement "for no good reason," adding that they were wrongly suspicious of him because he was Latino.
The report from the sheriff's office stated that deputies approached Barajas' white Nissan SUV "parked partially" in the roadway of the I-30 east ramp at mile marker 106. He was found sleeping inside while lying against the rear door. The report included written statements from five deputies.
In the report, Deputy Hunter Thompson wrote that Barajas "fell out" of his vehicle after the door was opened from the outside and that he later appeared to be talking to someone inside the vehicle, even though no one else was inside.
"[He] did not seem to be completely coherent with what was going on or where he was at," Thompson stated.
Deputy Christie Biddle wrote in the report that Barajas admitted to her that he had used narcotics but wasn't sure when he last did so.
Another deputy at the scene said Barajas had an "abnormal physical appearance," was "having problems with his eye contact" and was speaking in fragmented sentences. The only physical abnormality described in detail in the report was that one of Barajas' eyes was red.
At one point while being questioned, Barajas "took a sharp turn" toward the interstate "into traffic," at which time deputies guided him by his arm to the front of a patrol car and sat him down.
A medical team arrived and Barajas was examined inside an ambulance due to the "heavy rainfall," the report stated. One of the EMTs said Barajas "appeared fine," but told a deputy that "he could be high on something," the report stated.
After a K-9 search came up empty, Thompson told Barajas that the vehicle needed to be moved off the road and Barajas gave Thompson permission to move it onto the shoulder, Thompson wrote in the report.
"That makes absolutely no sense," Laux said, referring to deputies moving the car off the road. "That is not the protocol for law enforcement in that situation."
In another section of the report, Thompson stated that Barajas was no longer talking to himself and was no longer "shaking or moving back and forth" after he spoke to EMTs. He was advised not to drive due to his perceived mental state, deputies said.
Barajas told them he would wait inside the vehicle for his girlfriend, who was coming from Kentucky, according to the report.
Biddle wrote that she asked him specifically whether his girlfriend was driving all the way from Kentucky to pick him up and he replied, "Yes, she's coming from Kentucky, is that a problem?"
Deputies stated that Barajas was "cleared" medically and that "nothing of significance" was discovered inside his vehicle. All of the deputies cleared the scene and Lt. Kate Hawthorn wrote that she saw Barajas wrapped in a white blanket that EMTs had provided to him, according to the report.
Hawthorn said she told Barajas that if he walked up the ramp to U.S. 67, he could cross the bridge and find a truck stop. She said she also told him not to try and cross the interstate. The report states that Barajas was last seen by Hawthorn walking in the direction of the bridge.
Messages left with the Saline County coroner and sheriff's office were not returned Tuesday. Cindy Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas State Police, which investigated the vehicle death, said her agency doesn't comment on pending litigation.
State troopers found Barajas dead on the interstate shortly after 6 a.m., authorities said.
Barajas was struck first by a compact car heading east, according to the crash report. His body was thrown to the left lane, where he was struck by two more vehicles, both of them tractor-trailers, troopers said.
Barajas' sisters, Xexilia Barajas and Raquel Ramos, spoke during Tuesday's news conference in Dallas.
"I can't tell you the void and the pain this has caused our family," Xexilia Barajas said. "Not only just us, but his friends and his co-workers. Everyone wants to know what happened. ... What police are alluding to and what they're saying happened ... it's not true."
Barajas said she was notified by law enforcement about her brother's death. One of the officers who spoke to her told her they suspected him of being a "drug runner," she said.
"I realized the story ends the way it does because [police] thought he was a drug runner," she said.