Under fire, Border Patrol says agents kill only ‘as last resort’

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6. Excessive Force? Migrant Shot Dead by U.S. Border Agent Near San Diego After Throwing Rock

Excessive Force? Migrant Shot Dead by U.S. Border Agent Near San Diego After Throwing Rock
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/20/excessive_force_migrant_shot_dead_by

JOHN CARLOS FREY: The most recent report that I’ve read and the report that comes out of those that are investigating in the sheriff’s department in the area say that a Border Patrol agent was in pursuit of a migrant, separated from his partner. He was by himself. The suspected migrant started throwing rocks. There’s even an allegation that he threw a basketball-sized rock towards the agent—I’m not quite sure how you can do that. And the agent opened fire, fired twice, striking the migrant and killing him. And this seems to be a pattern. Obviously, the migrant’s not going to be able to speak up for himself as to what happened. But agents are allowed to use deadly force when being confronted with rock throwing. And that seems to be what happened here.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how is the Border Patrol justifying its rejection of a recommendation of its own inspector general on its policies for shootings of unarmed migrants?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: If you take a look at the recommendations, they’re actually quite sane. PERF, which is the think tank, the Police Executive Research Forum, it’s a group of law enforcement officers, professionals, who recommended to U.S. Border Patrol agents not necessarily to take away any sort of use of force when confronted with rock throwers, but to tamp it down, to de-escalate the situation, to move from the area, to actually physically move from the region where rocks are being thrown, or to take cover or to use nonlethal force. Those were the recommendations by PERF, and Border Patrol decided to deny all of those. They would like to still be able to use deadly force.

They claim in the past 10 years there have been about 6,000 confrontations with rock throwers. But there never has been an agent killed by rock throwers, so the use of deadly force seems a bit excessive, if agents themselves have never been killed by rocks. If you go to any major law enforcement agency in the country, in the United States, killing or shooting rock throwers, using guns to shoot rock throwers, would be forbidden by police agencies across the country. So it’s interesting that Border Patrol claim that it’s a necessity for them.