A U.S. Border Patrol Officer shoots and kills a teen boy with video at the Texas-Mexico border--tensions flare over the illegal immigrant shooting, Mexico claiming the police agent killed the teenager on Mexican soil, the shooting they say at close range.
CNN obtained video Thursday that shows the build-up to the shooting of a 15-year-old Mexican boy, Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, by a US border agent. Political tensions flare between the U.S. and Mexico, as each blames each other for the border shooting.
The US.-Mexico footage of video between El Paso, TEXAS and Ciuded Juarez, Mexico, originally aired on Univision, was taken by a bystander with a cell phone on the Mexican side of the border.
The United States insists that its U.S. Border and Customs Patrol officer was defending himself after being pelted with big stones or rocks-while trying to detain Mexican illegal immigrants on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande in Texas. Both the U.S. and Mexico governments are insinuating misconduct by the other country's police officers or agents.
The video footage shows four people running from the U.S. side of the border in El Paso, Teas, running underneath a railroad bridge that connects the United States to Mexico. A U.S. Border and Customs Patrol officer then emerges on a bicycle and manages to detain one of the illegal immigrant suspects, who the agent/officer then drags along the concrete.
The U.S. Border police officer then lifts his arm, holding what appears to be a gun, and points it toward the Mexico side and in the direction of one of the other three illegal immigrant suspects. Seconds later, two gun shots are heard being fired toward the Mexican side, with a third gun shot heard later in the video.
CNN says that witnesses of the Texas-Mexico border clash shooting can he heard on the video, in Spanish, saying "they're throwing rocks", followed by "they [U.S. Border and Customs Patrol] hit him... they hit him [with a gun shot]."
CNN and the Guardian insinuate that the border video footage seems to contradict the following statement from FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons: "This [U.S. Border and Customs Patrol] agent, who had the second subject [Mexican national] detained on the ground, gave verbal commands to the remaining subjects [Mexican nationals] to stop and retreat. However, the subjects surrounded the [U.S. Border and Customs Patrol] agent and continued to throw rocks at him. The agent then fired his service weapon [police-issued gun] several times, striking one subject [with a bullet] who later died."
The dead Mexican boy's body was found shot, about 20 feet from the border on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Arturo Sandoval, spokesman for the Chihuahua [Mexico] state attorney general's office. Sandoval also said Mexican authorities believe the fatal shot that killed the Mexican boy was fired from close range and not from a distance, suggesting that the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer crossed the border to Mexican land to kill the boy.
The FBI described the Arizona-Mexico border shooting incident as follows, via Associated Press: According to the FBI, United States Border Patrol agents/officers were responding to a group of suspected Mexican illegal immigrants that were being smuggled into the U.S. near the Paso Del Norte bridge in Texas state, across from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, at around 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 7.
The FBI says that one suspected Mexican illegal immigrant was detained on the levee on the U.S. (TEXAS) side of the border-that another Border and Customs Patrol agent/officer arrived on the concrete bank where the now-dry, 33-foot (10-meter) wide Rio Grande is located, and detained a second suspected Mexican illegal immigrant. Other suspected Mexican illegal immigrants ran back into Mexico (to the Mexican side of the border) and began throwing rocks at officers, the FBI said.
FBI continues that at least one thrown rock came from behind the Border and Customs Patrol agent/officer who was kneeling beside a suspected Mexican illegal immigrant whom he had detained prone on the ground, FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said. The Border and Customs Patrol agent/officer supposedly told the rock throwers to stop and back off, but the suspects continued. The Border agent then fired his gun several times, hitting one of the suspected Mexican illegal immigrants, who later died, the FBI says.
FBI is leading the June 7 Texas-Mexico border shooting and killing investigation of the teen boy, Bureau involvement due to the shooting involving what the U.S. claims is assault on a federal police officer. The Border and Customs Patrol agent/officer was not injured or hurt.