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Documents offer details on fatal shooting at border

By Greg Moran
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 23, 2006

Federal prosecutors charged a passenger in an SUV that was involved in a fatal shooting at the border last week with smuggling immigrants. They also released documents that offered more insight into the violent encounter.

José Adolfo Gonzalez Fabian was charged yesterday in federal court with transporting illegal immigrants. He did not enter a plea, and a magistrate set bond at $75,000.

He is next scheduled to appear in court June 6.

Gonzalez was the passenger in a Dodge Durango that picked up four illegal immigrants in Otay Mesa, about two miles from the border crossing, and then tried to evade federal officers, according to a Border Patrol agent's statement.

The driver, Oscar Abraham Garcia Barrios, was shot to death when he tried to flee to Mexico at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. The court records identify the driver as Oscar Gamiz-Bargas.

Gonzalez said in a statement that is part of the court documents released yesterday that the driver had his hands up as officers approached the Durango at the port of entry.

Police said the federal officers opened fire when the driver refused to obey commands and accelerated toward them.

The shooting shut down the border crossing, the busiest in the country, for nearly nine hours and stranded motorists in an epic gridlock on Interstates 5 and 805.

According to Gonzalez's statement, he and the driver went to pick up a small group of illegal immigrants on Otay Mesa.

But U.S. law enforcement officials had been tipped off and followed the SUV. The Dodge ended up heading south on I-5 but ran into traffic at the border.

The driver tried to go to the right side of the freeway and force his way through traffic. Gonzalez said officers appeared in front, and the car stopped.

Gonzalez said that when officers approached the car, “Oscar had his hands up.” Officers smashed a window of the SUV.

At that point, Gonzalez said he turned his head to the passenger-side window. Then, he said, he felt the car move forward.

He said he turned back and in Spanish yelled to the driver to “stop it.” Then he heard gunshots and saw the driver bleeding from the mouth.

The documents also contain a statement from a juvenile who was a passenger in the car. The youth said that when the car stopped at the border crossing it was Gonzalez who urged the driver, “Go, go go.”

He told authorities he saw the driver “placing the vehicle into gear by shifting the lever in a downward motion.”

He then heard a shot and saw the driver bleeding.



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Greg Moran: (619) 542-4586; greg.moran@uniontrib.com