Cross Border Shootings

Here’s a story from the New York Times Magazine reviewing the shooting of José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, a sixteen-year-old boy from Nogales, Mexico, who was shot through the border fence by Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Ray Swartz.

The reporter Mark Benilli makes passing reference to an incident where a fifteen-year-old juarense, Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca, was shot by Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa Jr., near the Paso del Norte port of entry, in 2010. The story from Nogales reveals some disturbing issues with the use of deadly force by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Within a week of the incident, Tomsheck was at F.B.I. headquarters watching footage captured by the security cameras lining the border fence. According to him, the video ‘‘very clearly’’ shows the marijuana smugglers struggling to scale the fence, while the two Nogales police officers and a Border Patrol agent look on. (The footage has never been publicly released.) ‘‘They do not appear to be displaying any concern for their safety whatsoever,’’ Tomsheck says of the officers. ‘‘There are no weapons drawn. People have their hands on their hips, standing there watching. If you were to give a title to the video up to that point, it would be: ‘It’s Another Day at the Border.’?’’

Then a second Border Patrol agent arrives on the scene. Immediately after emerging from his vehicle, according to Tomsheck’s description of the video, the agent walks to the fence, pulls out his gun and begins firing. The agent did not interact with the other law-enforcement officers on the scene. ‘‘He fired the round in chamber, all 12 rounds in the magazine, reloaded and fired at least one additional round,’’ Tomsheck says. ‘‘They seem absolutely shocked at first. There’s no audio, but they’re clearly thinking, What does he know that we don’t?’’

Tomsheck says the footage he viewed ‘‘demonstrated that José Antonio was certainly not throwing rocks at the time he was shot.’’ He describes the shooting as ‘‘the most egregious’’ of any excessive-force cases he’d seen at C.B.P. and says he felt ‘‘angry and sickened. Even if he had been throwing rocks previously — it’s conceivable, but there’s no evidence. But this was evidence of a Border Patrol agent shooting an unarmed boy.’’ If charges weren’t brought against this agent, he thought, the message being sent would be, ‘‘It’s open season at the border.’’

Of course, here in El Paso we’re all too complacent to be concerned about someone else getting shot.

Read the story. The pictures are great. Maybe you can muster enough outrage to curdle your buttermilk.