FLEETWOOD, Pa. – Governor Josh Shapiro has ordered state flags at all state facilities, public buildings, and grounds to fly at half-staff in honor of two firefighters killed in a tragic hit and run over the weekend.<\/p>\n
As the community pays tribute to those firefighters, the man accused of driving the car that hit them went before a judge Monday.<\/p>\n
Officials say the driver, Alexander Sepulveda Rivera, appeared virtually for his arraignment Monday. He is in the Berks County Jail facing a number of charges.<\/p>\n
Walnuttown Fire Chief Jeff Buck and Assistant Chief Rob Shick both died following a crash on Route 222 near the Route 662 roundabout in Richmond Township on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
It happened while they were searching for a missing woman. They were in a UTV on the side of the road when authorities say a car driven by 26-year-old Sepulveda Rivera of New York swerved off the road and hit them head-on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/69d41d8f44040.image.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Alexander Sepulveda Rivera<\/p>\n
Berks County Sheriff’s Office <\/p>\n
“I believe this may have been a situation where he was under the influence of a combination of different drugs and alcohol, but we are awaiting the final toxicology reports,” said Berks County District Attorney John Adams.<\/p>\n
According to court paperwork, evidence and witness statements indicated Sepulveda Rivera had been weaving back and forth before driving off the road and hitting the UTV. Authorities say he and a 46-year-old woman ran away, leaving the car after the crash. They were spotted walking not far from the crash scene.<\/p>\n
Police say Sepulveda Rivera admitted to being the person who had been driving the vehicle. He also told investigators he fell asleep and the crash woke him up.<\/p>\n
He allegedly admitted to smoking marijuana the day of the crash and said a crack pipe found in the car was his. Investigators say he did not have a driver’s license and there was a warrant for his arrest.<\/p>\n
Sepulveda Rivera is charged with multiple offenses, including two counts of homicide by vehicle, reckless driving and failure to stay at the scene and render aid.<\/p>\n
There will an update on the investigation at a scheduled Tuesday news conference with the Berks DA, Fleetwood Police and members of the Walnuttown Fire Company.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FLEETWOOD, Pa. – Governor Josh Shapiro has ordered state flags at all state facilities, public buildings, and grounds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,279,13886,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-158831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-berks","tag-northern-berks-county","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}