INGHAM COUNTY, Mich. — The trial for an ex-Kent County Deputy accused of assaulting a paralyzed man in an alleged road rage incident began Friday.
Marcelo Aranda is charged with assault and battery against 36-year-old Tyler Lueken on Aug. 19, 2022.
Aranda was fired from the Kent County Sheriff's Office less than a month later.
Witnesses say Lueken, who is paralyzed from the waist down, had been speeding down I-96 near Lansing before Aranda, who was off-duty at the time, intervened. Lueken claims there was a confrontation with Aranda on the highway, and he pulled into a rest area to get away.
That's when Lueken says Aranda approached his vehicle yelling and eventually pulled him out and punched him on the ground.
During the trial, the defense has been pushing that Aranda was trying to perform a citizen's arrest and protect other drivers. Aranda believed Lueken was drunk during the incident.
"Mr. Aranda and his wife are going to say that they called 911 and said, 'look, this guy is clearly intoxicated,'" Aranda's attorney Josh Kuiper said during the trial. "'He is going to kill someone out here on the road.' And as it turns out, when the police got there and did an investigation, despite Mr. Lueken saying 'I had nothing to drink,' the cops could clearly tell that he had smelled of alcohol."
Lueken was later charged with a DUI in the incident.
However, the prosecution persists that Aranda abused his position as a police officer, attempting to do police work in an area that was outside his jurisdiction.
"The defendant did not wait for the police to arrive," Ingham County Assistant Prosecutor Victoria Schinzing said during the trial Friday. "When he followed Mr. Lueken's car into this rest stop, he decided he was the law and he was going to handle it."
Cell phone video shows Aranda hitting Lueken multiple times, even pressing him under the steering wheel, something that was said to make it difficult for Lueken to breathe due do being paralyzed.
There is still ongoing debate about whether Lueken hit Aranda at any point during the confrontation, although Lueken has denied that happening.
The trial expected wrap up on Monday.
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