One of many outdoor murals of Jose Antonio Elana Rodriguez in Mexico.
16-year-old Mexican national Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was gunned down on Oct. 12, 2012 in front of
witnesses:
According to the plaintiffs, two witnesses saw Jose Antonio “peacefully walking” home at 11:30 p.m. on Calle Internacional—a street in Nogales, Mexico, that runs parallel to the border fence—when one or more U.S. Border Patrol agents opened fire from the U.S. side and killed him. An autopsy report reveals he was shot 10 times in the back. Border Patrol agents say they were responding to illicit cross-border activity, and that the boy threw rocks at them, but no proof of that has ever been presented because the agency will not release the security-camera video footage.
The Border Patrol agent, Lonnie Swartz, has now been indicted on
a charge of second degree murder.
This was the agent's justification at the
time of the shooting:
According to a statement released by the Border Patrol the day after the shooting - the only public account of the incident the agency has yet to provide - agents saw smugglers drop a drug load over the fence into the United States and flee back into Mexico. At that point, suspects on the Sonora side of the fence reportedly began throwing rocks at the agents.“After verbal commands from agents to cease were ignored, one agent then discharged his service firearm. One of the subjects appeared to have been hit,” the statement said.
Oh! Rocks coming across the fence. Now shooting an unarmed 16-year-old boy in the back 10 times makes perfect sense.
Unfortunately, Agent Swartz is one of the only Border Patrol agents to face serious consequences for shootings along the border. This 2013 report from the Arizona Republic notes there are usually few consequences for border patrol agents:
An Arizona Republic investigation has found Border Patrol agents who use deadly force face few, if any, public repercussions, even in cases in which the justification for the shooting seems dubious.
Since 2005, on-duty Border Patrol agents and Customs and Border Protection officers have killed at least 42 people, including at least 13 Americans.
These deaths, all but four of which occurred along or near the southwest border, vary from strongly justifiable to highly questionable. CBP officials say agents who use excessive force are disciplined. But they won’t say who, when, or what discipline, with the exception of a short administrative leave. In none of the 42 deaths is any agent or officer publicly known to have faced consequences — not from the Border Patrol, not from Customs and Border Protection or Homeland Security, not from the Department of Justice, and not, ultimately, from criminal or civil courts.
The mother of Rodriguez
filed a federal civil rights lawsuit—with the help of the ACLU—against Agent Swartz.