AUSTIN -- He's the guy on a motorcycle you may have passed earlier, not even noticing the yellow shades on a '93 Suzuki, but for a special few, 47-year-old Sisto Perez is much more.
"My friends that I know would have done exactly what I did," smiled Perez. "I don't see them doing anything other than that."
That was a modest response to what some call heroic. Around 2 a.m. Friday, Perez stopped at a red light near San Jacinto Street as a group crossed 8th Street.
"That split second that she walked in front of me, the two girls and the guy I saw in the rear view mirror," Perez explained.
What Perez saw was a Chevy Impala driven by 22-year-old Nicholas Colunga, who never stopped driving.
"He hit them, and they went up in the air right in front of me and landed right here," said Perez. "He kept going, and at that time, at that split second, I made a conscious decision to chase him."
University of Texas senior soccer player Kylie Doniak lay in the street, the most seriously injured in a group of three. As witnesses rushed to help, Perez took off.
"I lost view of him for a couple seconds, but then I heard 'kabaam.' He hit something else," said Perez. "For a split second I thought, 'If he takes a left, I'm going to ram my bike into him and jump off my bike.'"
The chase across downtown ended when Colunga wrecked his car near the corner of 10th Street and Rio Grande Street. By the time he got out to run away, Perez was ready.
"I cruised up behind him, jumped off the bike, and pulled him out and put him on the ground," explained Perez.
Perez pinned Colunga to the ground next to his wrecked car, before tying him up with a belt. Police charged Colunga with two counts of failing to stop and render aid, in addition to intoxication assault.
"Knowing what I know now, that that poor girl's pretty hurt, if he'd of caught me 10 years ago, I would have put a whooping on him." Perez said. "I told the officers he's one less guy we got to worry about."
