Thread: BRIAN TERRY: Agents Fired First, With Bean Bags

Terry revelation: Border agents fired first -- with bean bags
Posted: Feb 28, 2011 7:39 PM CST Updated: Feb 28, 2011 8:08 PM CST

Reporters: Ileana Diaz and Joel Waldman
Web Producer: Forrest Carr


TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - On the night he was killed, there is no indication that Border Agent Brian Terry ever got off a shot. That is one of the startling revelations contained in a confidential document that 9 On Your Side has obtained.

The document is a BORTAC incident report - BORTAC being an acronym for Border Patrol Tactical Unit. According to the report, Terry was one of six officers taking part in a patrol in the Rio Rico area - not four, as the Border Patrol had previously stated. The Border Patrol has said very little about what happened that night, but after the shooting stated that four officers had been looking for bandits preying on drug and human smugglers.

The incident report states that shortly at 11:15 PM on the night of December 14, a group of five people approached the officers in the Peck Well area, where the officers were waiting in the dark. The agents saw that two of the men were armed with rifles. Agent Gabriel Fragoza identified himself as a Border Patrol agent - then, according to the report, fired two rounds from the non-lethal weapon he was carrying, a shotgun that fired bean bags. Fragoza then continued the firefight with real bullets, fired from his service firearm. Agent Timothy Keller joined the firefight, using his service M-4 rifle.

The incident report does not specifically say, at this point, that the suspects returned fire. But after the shooting stopped, Terry cried out that he was hit and that he could not feel his legs. He lost consciousness moments later.

At 11:13 one of the agents broadcast over the radio that shots had been fired, that an agent had been hit, and that a bandit may have been wounded.

The agents notified U.S. and Mexican authorities. A search started for the suspects.

At 11:40 PM, according to the report, Terry had no pulse and was unresponsive.

Just before midnight, the BORTAC agents reported that they had a wounded suspect in custody.

AT 12:10, Terry was loaded into a vehicle for transport to a helicopter landing zone. He arrived there about 35 minutes later. 20 minutes after that, at 1:06 in the morning, a doctor pronounced him dead.

At 1:35 agents reported that they now had a total of four suspects in custody.

More than four hours later, at 3:40 AM, the wounded suspect arrived at the landing zone that had been designated for the medical helicopter. According to the incident report, he'd been shot twice in the abdomen and once in the upper back. The suspect was then airlifted to University Medical Center. About a minute later after the suspected arrived at the landing zone, Terry's body was dispatched by ambulance to the Tubac Fire Station, where arrangements were made for a mortuary to take charge of his body.

If any of the bandits returned fire, or if any of the agents actually saw what the wounded suspect was doing when he was hit, it is not indicated in this report.

On the morning following the shooting, the Border Patrol publicly announced the arrest of four suspects, but did not reveal that any of them had been wounded. The Border Patrol then turned the investigation over to the FBI, which has said very little since then. Later the U.S. Marshals' service announced that it had two other suspects in custody. But as KGUN9 News reported at the time, the FBI had no information on those additional two suspects.

In the weeks since then, three of the four original suspects were allowed to plead to immigration violations and were scheduled to be deported. No other suspects are known to be in custody. that leaves the one wounded suspect, who is mostly recovered from his wounds and who remains in custody. He has not, however, been charged with murder.

When contacted Monday night by 9 On Your Side reporter Joel Waldman, Terry's stepmother Carolyn had an adverse reaction to news that the first shots fired were from a non-lethal weapon. "These men were trained BORTAC agents. They are trained to take lives. They are not supposed to be out there with bean-bag guns."

The Terrys have been vocal critics of the handling of the investigation to date.

http://www.kgun9.com/global/story.asp?s=14159127

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From Post #1 below on "Americans Killed by Illegals":

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - On the night he was killed, there is no indication that Border Agent Brian Terry ever got off a shot.

In the weeks since then, three of the four original suspects were allowed to plead to immigration violations and were scheduled to be deported.