Thread: Border Patrol shooting at Port of Entry delays traffic

Border Patrol shooting at Port of Entry delays traffic

A blue Chevrolet Impala involved in a shooting around 9:30 a.m. Monday in the southbound lanes of the Calexico Downtown Port of Entry remains as investigators review the scene. Southbound traffic was diverted to the Calexico East Port of Entry. (CHELCEY ADAMI PHOTO / August 27, 2012)

By CHELCEY ADAMI Staff Writer Imperial Valley Press 11:33 p.m. PDT, August 27, 2012

CALEXICO — A man was wounded in the leg by Border Patrol during a shooting near the downtown Calexico Port of Entry on Monday morning when agents stopped a car involved in an illegal immigrant-smuggling attempt.

Traffic coming into the United States was delayed, and traffic leaving the country was redirected to the Calexico East Port of Entry, said Armando Garcia, supervisory Border Patrol agent for the El Centro Sector public affairs office.

Delays lasted for hours, and curious pedestrians and drivers alike stopped to ask what was going on as the usually bustling southbound lanes of Imperial Avenue remained empty.

The shooting occurred around 9:30 a.m. when Border Patrol agents were pursuing a blue Chevrolet Impala as it came down Imperial Avenue.

Agents laid out spike strips to puncture the tires of the car and gave oral commands for the driver to pull over, but he kept driving toward Mexico and multiple shots were fired by Border Patrol. It is unclear if one or more agents opened fire.

There were three people in the car, and the single wounded occupant of the vehicle was transported to El Centro Regional Medical Center for treatment. All are now in authorities’ custody.

FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth said the investigation is ongoing. After being notified of the incident, FBI agents responded to the scene and worked with Border Patrol to initiate agent-involved shooting protocol, which involves interviewing witnesses and collecting evidence.

Multiple rounds were fired, Foxworth said, but no more information was immediately available.

It was the second shooting near that Port of Entry within 24 hours, following a Sunday night shooting on the Mexico side that left one man dead.

Mexican media identified the victim in that incident as Pedro Ramirez Reyes, 50, and described him as a human-smuggling suspect.

He was sitting on the dividers separating the vehicle lines entering the downtown Port of Entry when a man walked up to him and shot him in the head before running away and getting on a waiting motorcycle, according to witness reports. No more information on that shooting was available at press time.

Monday’s incident was at least the third shooting to occur in lanes feeding the downtown port since the end of July when another person on the Mexicali side was shot while waiting to cross.

No arrests have been made in that shooting, according to Mexican authorities.

Staff Writer Chelcey Adami can be reached at 760-337-3452 or cadami@ivpressonline.com.

Border Patrol shooting at Port of Entry delays traffic - ivpressonline.com

August 28, 2012|By CHELCEY ADAMI
Imperial Valley Press

CALEXICO — Officials here are concerned that actions by El Centro Sector U.S. Border Patrol agents endangered citizens as well as city employees during a shooting at the Calexico downtown Port of Entry on Monday.

Agents pursuing a vehicle suspected to be involved in illegal immigrant smuggling threw down tire spikes in front of the car as it headed toward Mexico and then shot multiple rounds at the car, causing it to catch fire. One of the occupants was wounded, and all three occupants were arrested.

Calexico Police Chief Jim Neujahr said a policy in place for years, not just in Calexico but also in other border communities, restricts pursuits as well as the use of spike strips in congested areas to minimize danger to nearby citizens.

“For Border Patrol to do this, the amount of people they endangered to try to catch a couple of people that are here illegally, is not a good trade-off,” Neujahr said. “We can’t have our citizens endangered just because of people that are minimal law violators.”

A driver may lose control of the car once tires are deflated, depending on how fast a vehicle is traveling, and the chance of wrecking the vehicle increases.

“You could send a car flying off and crashing into someone else,” Neujahr said.

Calexico Fire Chief Pete Mercado was also concerned about Monday’s incident. Calexico firefighters were called to the scene in response to a call that a vehicle was on fire at the Port of Entry but weren’t notified until they were already at the scene that shots had been fired.

“When they’re shooting in a northwest fashion to an ambulance coming in … it’s scary when you realize that on scene,” he said.

Normally the Fire Department wouldn’t enter a scene until it’s clear and the emergency responders’ safety is ensured, he explained.

The multiple rounds fired into the fleeing car left one occupant wounded in the leg, and the car had numerous bullet holes not just in the driver’s area but other areas as well.

Neujahr said the use of firearms by law enforcement is the “last way of being able to protect ourselves,” and from his perspective, “to be using firearms and lethal force at that point is not proper procedure.”

He cited another incident three to four months ago when he said an agent elected to use deadly force when “the reason for using deadly force, that his life was in imminent danger, had already passed.”

“I don’t want there to be a mentality on the Border Patrol side that they’re in their own little world. … When they take these actions to use deadly force they have to take into consideration that there’s innocent people close by to them,” he said. “From the outside looking in, I can’t tolerate this happening in our community again.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has an ongoing investigation of the incident, and without authorized consent, Border Patrol can’t release additional information or comment, said Armando Garcia, supervisory Border Patrol agent for the El Centro Sector public affairs office.

How long the investigation may take can widely vary, and it’s too early in the investigation to say whether excessive force was used, said FBI Special Agent Darrell Foxworth. He did advise that each particular agency does have its own deadly force policy.

Neujahr said he is aware that the FBI did file charges on the driver and front seat passenger of the car but additional calls and e-mails to the FBI to clarify what those charges are were not returned by press time.

The police chief called Border Patrol’s Calexico station to express his feelings that “enforcement actions they chose to take were too much.”

The Calexico Police Department has received assistance from Mexican authorities for suspects that have fled out of their jurisdiction 90 percent of the time in the past, he said, and even if the suspected human smuggler made it to Mexico on Monday, he felt a chance to catch him would have presented itself again.

“Once you get to that certain point, you have to realize that you lost,” he said. “There’s a lot of things going on that, just in a proper police procedure, it does not happen this way. We have policies and procedures in place to protect the public, not the wanted person.”

Border Patrol shooting prompts criticism - Imperial Valley Press Online

August 29, 2012|By CHELCEY ADAMI | Staff Writer
Imperial Valley Press

Charges have been filed against two suspects in the car involved in the U.S. Border Patrol shooting at the Calexico downtown Port of Entry on Monday morning.

Three agents shot at a car suspected to be involved in illegal immigrant smuggling as it came close to exiting the country into Mexico. One occupant was wounded in the leg.

Saul Alejandro Valencia-Estrada and Leslie Luna-Chavez were both charged with a felony charge of assault on a federal officer, illegal transportation of an alien as well as aiding and abetting, according to the case complaint in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of California.

The complaint, based on the statements of five Border Patrol agents, reads that on Monday the two defendants “did attempt to assault with his vehicle” three Border Patrol agents.

Before the shooting, two agents had seen a man identified as Carlos Munoz-Meza illegally enter the U.S. by climbing the border fence and followed him to a park in Calexico to identify others involved in illegal-immigrant smuggling, according to the complaint based on the FBI’s investigation.

Around 9 a.m. Monday, a Chevrolet Impala drove to the park and Munoz got in the car. Agents followed the car down a dead-end street where the driver realized he was being followed and began to evade authorities.

Shortly after, an agent patrolling near the Port of Entry was advised on the radio that a Chevrolet Impala was failing to yield to a marked Border Patrol vehicle following behind it with emergency lights and sirens on.

He heard the oncoming car accelerate, shouted for it to stop, and when it didn’t, he fired an unknown number of rounds at the car and stepped out of its path.

A nearby agent on bike patrol also responded to the call about the pursued vehicle failing to yield, and when he arrived at the scene there were two Border Patrol vehicles that had assembled a road block made up of one marked unit and one unmarked unit, both with emergency lights activated.

The approaching car moved to a gap on the right and when the agent thought the vehicle was going to hit him, he fired an unknown number of rounds into the car passenger side, according to the complain.

The driver of the approaching sedan turned his car in the direction of another agent helping to assemble the road block with his unmarked car, and when that agent heard a gunshot, he also fired an unknown number of rounds, according to the complaint.

Border shooting: Charges are filed against suspects alleged to be smuggling man - Imperial Valley Press Online