An Oklahoma City police officer was conducting a traffic stop near SW 46th and May on Oct. 17 when another car slammed into his patrol vehicle, then kept going and crashed into a nearby Little Caesar's. The officer suffered minor injuries, and no citizens were hurt in the chaotic sequence of events.
According to KOKH, the officer had pulled over a vehicle at around 3:44 p.m. when the patrol car was struck by a car driven by Uriel Soto-Sigala. Rather than stopping, Soto-Sigala kept driving before crashing into the pizza chain restaurant in the area, the station reports.
The Oklahoma City Police Department confirmed that the officer's vehicle was struck by another car during the traffic stop. Soto-Sigala was charged with driving under the influence in the preliminary investigation, per the same report.
Minor Injuries, No Harm to Bystanders
The officer involved in the collision suffered only minor injuries, the station's report notes, and no citizens were hurt during the incident. Details beyond that remain limited, as the investigation into the crash was still in its preliminary stages at the time of reporting.
Officer-involved collisions during traffic stops carry real risk, something underscored by a separate case outside Oklahoma City. A Norman police officer was struck while outside his patrol vehicle in an officer-involved collision in December 2025, according to the City of Norman, leaving him critically injured.
A Statewide Problem With Impaired Driving
The Oct. 17 crash lands amid troubling statewide trends on impaired driving. Oklahoma's alcohol-impaired traffic deaths rose 25.7% in 2024, climbing from 179 to 225, according to The Journal Record, even as drunken-driving deaths nationally fell 4.2% over the same period, from 12,429 to 11,904.
Alcohol was a factor in 34.9% of all Oklahoma road deaths in 2024, above the national share of roughly 30%, the Journal Record reports. The state also recorded 484.61 DUI arrests per 100,000 drivers that year, and Oklahoma posted the second-highest DUI road fatality rate in the country, at 8.77 deaths per 100,000 licensed drivers. Of the 161 impaired drivers killed on state roads in 2024, 123 were men and 38 were women.
State officials have acknowledged the scope of the problem. Alcohol- and drug-impaired driving crashes continue to represent a significant portion of the state's traffic fatalities, according to the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office, which tracks crash data through its Interactive Crash Dashboard and an annual Crash Facts report.
No further details on Soto-Sigala's case, including any court proceedings, had been released as of this report.
