If you have not looked at my profile, I live in El Paso, TX. My home is between a 1/4 mile - 1/2 mile from the border (US/Mex) and the DEADLIEST CITY in the World.
As you can see below search "deadliest city in the world" in yahoo and this is what you will find for the first 9:
Now, on Monday June 7th 2010 a tragedy took place right on the border.
A US Border Patrol agent was called to check out possible illegal aliens trying to enter the country at a bridge near downtown El Paso. When he arrives he apprehends one individual while several others run back across the river (at this point the river is low and not really much for the people to run across). From across the Rio Grande River the other people start throwing rocks and refuse (bottles, broken bricks, etc...) at the Agent.
The Agent gives the people fair warning to have them stop and pulls his weapon. (Not certain here but more than likely a 9mm or some similar pistol.) After warning the people he fires off a round and hits a young man in the head and the young man passed away then and there at the foot of the bridge (on the Mexican side). The young man was (now reports vary) 14 or 15 years old.
The parents, being parents, are grieving for the loss of their son and saying what an innocent child he was never doing any wrong and he was only out playing with his friends.
The Mexican President has "Requested" Justice for the Slaying of an innocent child.
The Mexican Attorney General is investigating the "Murder".
The US Attorney General is pursuing a Civil-Rights-Investigation on the incident.
A Few things here strike me as Just fundamentally wrong here:
1. First and Foremost - Living right across the border from the Deadliest City in the World - I think the Mexican President and Attorney General need to focus on the Corrupt Police Dept. and Military that are in Juarez and start controlling things on their side of the border. Improve the economy in Mexico so that the residents of their country do not feel the need to leave and risk crossing the border of another country illegally. (Many countries around the world have very harsh penalties for crossing their borders illegally, and that is without any violence at all.)
2. Throwing Rocks at Police officers, Military, Border Patrol Agents is an assault against said Peace Officer. The Officer has every right to defend himself under the circumstances. Especially if he is Alone!
Having traveled a fair part of the world with the Military, there are things you just do not do and that is to get in the way of, or assault in any form the Police or Peace Officers of another country in any way. The Results can be Devastating (as we saw Monday)! In Italy for instance the Kari Banari (spelling, but the main Police Force in Italy) yell telling people to get down, you better get your ASS down. These guys carry Uzis and when they are saying that they are about to shoot. If a bystander gets shot - oh well, they were told to get down (and if you do not understand Italian, why are you in their streets?).
3. The young man that was shot and died on Monday is not the innocent that is being portrayed. He was on the Most Wanted list here in El Paso for Human Smuggling and has a record with the US Justice Dept.
4. Why does our Government continue to sidestep issues of illegal entry into the US so much so that the individual states are beginning to take their own actions? Why is our Government treating the People they Hire to protect our Borders as if they are the criminals when individuals that are trying to enter illegally assault them on a regular basis?
So there is no Misunderstanding here. A person crossing the border at a proper point of entry in order to visit someone, go shopping or even to file the paperwork to become a legal citizen of the United States has every right (in my opinion) that we as American Citizens have because they have come to this country legally and for a civil purpose (not to commit a crime). The difference is when you come into this Country Illegally and commit crimes or assaults, even from across the border, against someone within our borders there are consequences that sometimes could be fatal and this sadly is what happened on Monday.
I don't totally disagree with you, but the decision to use deadly force may have been premature. Could he have taken other actions to keep himself safe without using deadly force? You also need to take into account that he fired across a border. Shooting people throwing rocks is a lot like using a cannon to kill flies...gets the job done, but the collateral damage is extreem.
ReplyDeleteOkay, all that being said, I agree that we either secure the border or we open it up. It doesn't make sense to have policies and procedures in place that we can't/don't enforce.
I'll be in Texas next week (Austin), but I won't be throwing any rocks!
I hadn't heard the story. I've been so busy this week that i've missed the news all around. I think it's sad that a child had to die for wanting to visit but at the same time i have a hard time feeling bad for somebody that directly sets out to 'break' the law. Don't get me wrong - i completely feel for his family!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree on the point of entry! I think that there are people that have loved ones here or there and would like to visit them. I think it's ridiculous that it's had to come so far because of the lack of respect for our country or really any country!
Many, many years ago I lived close to the Arizona border. There were places nearby where we didn't go at anytime of day or night. Trails I couldn't walk, mountains I couldn't climb, streams I couldn't fish. All of them were on the US side of the border but were in the main path of one smuggling gang or another. There was a kid at my high school, 15 years old, spoke little English, had a bad attitude. He wasn't in school much but one night we saw him on television. Turns out he was a shooter for the Mexican Mafia, nickname was "Goodbye." He was riding shotgun with some smugglers that day and took out two Border Patrol agents who'd been chasing them across the desert. Then the smugglers crashed the truck and left him behind as they ran away. While he was awaiting trial the gang killed half a dozen DEA agents in Mexico City and Guadalajara, trying to get the US to release the kid. Finally, he was tried, convicted and transported to what was then SuperMax (Marion, IL). At Marion some neophyte 16-year-old Aryan with a dozen huge swastikas tattooed on him took the kid out as they passed each other in the hallway on their way to their one-hour-a-day outside time. Seems the guards were a little slack in their duties...
ReplyDeleteThe kid's younger brother inherited his nickname, and his day job. The Aryan probably has three or four lives to go before he gets out (if he's still alive). The guards are all retired, and probably living in south Florida. The Mexican politicians who leaked the info about the DEA agents were probably taken out by the Tijuana cartel, but it could just as well have been the boys from Culiacan before they were merged... The most innocent in this recent incident is probably that lone Border Patrol officer, but he was also pretty stupid in being out there alone.
This seems so strange to me because we live on an island so the idea of ilegal entry on foot is something we don't get. How hard it must be to police a border you can just walk across. Obviously we can walk from Scotland to England but currently this is just like crossing a state line.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why the border patrol guy was on his own, seems a bit of a dangerous situation to be in.