A jury was selected and opening statements were made Monday in what is expected to be a five-day trial for a Durango man suspected of running over two pedestrians in a crosswalk while driving drunk.

Cruz Baca, 40, is charged with vehicular assault, careless driving, drunken driving, misdemeanor assault and failure to yield to pedestrians.

The hit-and-run crash occurred at 2:11 a.m. Oct. 16 at East Second Avenue and College Drive. Darby Hamer and Alan “Damon” Balfour were crossing College Drive, from north to south, when a Toyota Tacoma traveling west hit both pedestrians, according to witnesses.

“It was extremely loud,” Hamer said Monday from the witness stand. “I remember the sound of crunching metal ... and then I was face-down on the pavement in a lot of pain. (I heard) a lot of screaming.”

Hamer said she was with about eight friends who had just left the Wild Horse Saloon. She was near the back of the pack when she stepped into the crosswalk, looked left, and saw headlights coming toward her from about a block away.

She figured the pickup would stop, like most cars do for people in the crosswalk. She felt more assured because she was with a large group of people who also were in the crosswalk, she said. She kept walking, not giving it much thought.

The pickup didn’t stop.

Hamer suffered a broken hip that required surgery and a gash to her head that needed 10 stitches. Balfour suffered road rash to his back and was on crutches for a hurt knee.

“I got on all fours and thought to myself, ‘Did that really just happen?’” Hamer said. “My head was hurting really bad ... and then I had deep, deep hip pain.”

The driver sped away.

Witnesses chased the vehicle and were able to get a description and a partial license plate. Police stopped one vehicle matching the description, but let the driver go after concluding he wasn’t involved.

Police dispatchers ran the partial license plate number and identified a gold Toyota Tacoma belonging to Baca as possibly being the vehicle involved. Officers went to Baca’s home at 1208 Avenida del Sol and located a gold Tacoma with front-end damage.

“The truck appeared to have fresh damage on the front of the vehicle,” according to an arrest affidavit. “The Toyota was missing a front right head light and parking light. There also was a large smudge on the front right bumper, the side mirror was collapsed, there were fresh scratches on the front quarter panel and there was a large smudge and hand print on the hood.”

A piece of broken parking light found at the crash scene matched the broken parking light on the right side of the Toyota Tacoma, according to the affidavit.

Officers contacted Baca at 3:45 a.m. inside his home, where they described him as heavily intoxicated with slurred speech and a strong odor of alcohol on his breath.

Baca said he drank three Pinstripe beers earlier that evening at Eighth Avenue Tavern. He told police, “Nobody drives my car but me,” according to the affidavit.

He denied hitting any pedestrians.

Prosecutors said blood-alcohol tests taken seven hours after the crash showed Baca was still under the influence of alcohol.

His Durango defense attorney, Katie Whitney, used her opening statement to poke holes in the police investigation, saying after matching a piece of parking light to Baca’s truck, officers assumed it was Baca’s truck that caused the crash, that Baca was driving, and that he must have been impaired.

A friend of Baca’s will testify he had “two beers or so,” and he “appeared fine to drive,” she said.

There is a 1½-hour gap between the time of the accident and when police made contact with him, Whitney said. He was in markedly different condition from when he left the Eighth Avenue Tavern to when police contacted him, she said.

She asked jurors to pay attention to details, for example, the orientation of witnesses and their ability to perceive what really happened.

“We don’t rely on assumption,” Whitney said. “We rely on evidence, investigation and facts.”

shane@durangoherald.com