Police officer, former FAU football player dies in off-duty crash in West Palm Beach
WEST PALM BEACH — A West Palm Beach police officer who once played football at Florida Atlantic University died last week in a single-vehicle crash, the department said.
Joshua Tyree Ballesteros, 30, was a six-year veteran of the city force. He died early Sunday, April 14, after his car went into a canal along North Congress Avenue.
Authorities found his vehicle shortly before 5:30 a.m. Sunday after a caller to 911 reported seeing a vehicle go into a canal south of Lombard Street, near 45th Street. Another caller reported seeing a car upside down in the water and told a dispatcher that no one had gotten out.
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Officers removed Ballesteros from a 2017 Ford Fusion and brought him to shore. Ballesteros died that day at St. Mary's Medical Center, police said. He was driving his personal vehicle and was not on duty at the time of the crash.
As of Friday, April 19, the crash remained under investigation. The department said traffic homicide investigators have determined Ballesteros was traveling north on Congress when, for reasons unknown, the Fusion ran off the road and struck a guardrail before hitting a tree, rolling over and landing in the canal upside down.
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Ballesteros was a defensive lineman for FAU's football team from 2012 to 2015 and earned a bachelor's degree in public safety administration, the university's athletic department said this week. It recruited him out of Miami Central High School.
"Josh was everything you could ask for as an alumnus of this university and our football program," the FAU athletic department and football program said in a joint statement.
"He was a model student-athlete and teammate, an incredible family man and an upstanding member of the West Palm Beach community as a law enforcement officer. Our hearts go out to the entire Ballesteros family. They are in our thoughts at this difficult time."
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Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm Beach police officer dies when car crashes into canal
