BORDER SLAYING

U.S. should press Mexico to help locate killer

The recent shooting death of a 27-year-old Border Patrol agent near
Nogales, Ariz., is yet another reminder of the high cost of keeping drugs
off America's streets.

Every family in America at risk of having drugs destroy the lives of its
sons and daughters should acknowledge the ultimate sacrifice made by Border
Patrol Agent Alexander Kirpnick. The young man who joined the agency in
1996 after immigrating from Russia in 1988 was fatally wounded by marijuana
smugglers west of Nogales. U.S. border guards seize eight to 10 tons of
marijuana in southern Arizona each month.

"This is the worst incident of violence along our stretch of the border,"
said a Border Patrol spokesman in Tucson. "We see it as an indicator of the
increased flow of drugs across the border and the smugglers' willingness to
use violence."

How true. The border has become a hot spot ever since U.S. anti-drug agents
began closing down drug smuggling routes through the Caribbean to South
Florida a decade ago. Agent Kirpnick was the first agent to die in the line
of duty in the Tucson sector since 1983, but he was the fourth agent to be
shot since mid-1995. In a similar incident in Texas, Border Patrol Agent
Jefferson Barr was killed by smugglers near Eagle Pass on Jan. 19, 1997.

Additional Border Patrol agents were being assigned to the border even
before the latest incident of violence, but the issue now is one of
justice.

One smuggling suspect has been arrested by the Border Patrol.

Washington should urge the Mexican government to cooperate in tracking down
the other four suspects detained by Agent Kirpnick before he was shot.
Mexican officials already may have arrested one. The Mexican government
should act as a good neighbor by trying to identify the agent's killer and
to extradite him to the United States to stand trial here.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)