{"id":172286,"date":"2026-04-21T23:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/172286\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T23:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T23:31:08","slug":"preliminary-hearing-postponed-in-case-involving-death-of-two-berks-firefighters-berks-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/172286\/","title":{"rendered":"Preliminary hearing postponed in case involving death of two Berks firefighters | Berks Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FLEETWOOD, Pa. &#8211; Clad in a dark blue Berks County Jail suit, his hands and legs shackled, Alexander Sepulveda Rivera walked through a hallway before his preliminary hearing that ended up being postponed due to pending state police lab results.<\/p>\n<p>He said nothing to media present outside the hearing.<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Alexander Sepulveda Rivera walking through a hallway before his preliminary hearing\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1662\" height=\"1247\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/69e7e043b3a88.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"150\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Alexander Sepulveda Rivera<\/p>\n<p>                                    WFMZ-TV | Tom Rader<\/p>\n<p>Family members of the victims could also be seen outside the district courtroom in Fleetwood.<\/p>\n<p>Sepulveda Rivera is charged in a crash that left <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wfmz.com\/news\/area\/berks\/hit-and-run-suspect-faces-list-of-charges-after-tragic-crash-that-killed-two-firefighters\/article_f374cbb1-25c1-4c46-8eac-24e80c7a136e.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">two volunteer fire chiefs dead earlier this month.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Driver charged in crash that killed 2 fire chiefs in Berks faces preliminary hearing\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/69e7bd401f0cf.image.webp.webp\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"113\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Authorities say he drove recklessly on Route 222 in Richmond Township before he struck and killed Walnuttown Fire Chief Jeff Buck and Assistant Chief Rob Shick as they were in an off-road vehicle helping search for a missing woman.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities say he had a 46-year-old woman in the car, and they both fled the scene but were found nearby.<\/p>\n<p>Police say Rivera told them he fell asleep and the crash woke him.<\/p>\n<p>According to authorities, he allegedly said he smoked marijuana the day of the incident and police said they found a crack pipe found in the car that Rivera claimed was his.<\/p>\n<p>Police say he also was driving without a license and had an outstanding warrant.<\/p>\n<p>This latest development comes days after a well-attended joint funeral and memorial service for the fallen firefighters and fundraisers to help their families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FLEETWOOD, Pa. &#8211; Clad in a dark blue Berks County Jail suit, his hands and legs shackled, Alexander&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[71831,349,77321,71538,71718,3297,8623,128,130,129,12128,77320,74030],"class_list":{"0":"post-172286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-alexander-sepulveda-rivera","9":"tag-berks-county","10":"tag-crack-pipe","11":"tag-firefighter-death","12":"tag-jeff-buck","13":"tag-marijuana","14":"tag-preliminary-hearing","15":"tag-reading-city","16":"tag-reading-city-headlines","17":"tag-reading-city-news","18":"tag-richmond-township","19":"tag-road-crash","20":"tag-rob-shick"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172286","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=172286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}