REPERCUSSIONS OF A MILITARY KILLING

EL PASO, Texas--As the Marines approached, Esequiel Hernandez Jr. writhed
on the ground in agony, dying from the military-issue M/16 bullet that had
torn into his side.

On that rainy evening one year ago, the 18 -year-old goatherd became the
first American civilian casualty of U.S. troops enlisted to fight the war
on drugs.

He may have been the last. The military suspended its drug patrols along
the border two months later and not one armed soldier has returned since.

"We don't know when and if those missions will be reinstated. To be very
honest, we don't believe they will. The entire operation was put under
scrutiny. I just don't see us going back into that business," said Lt. Col.
Jere Norman, spokesman for Joint Task Force Six, the agency that
coordinates anti-drug missions between the military and civilian
authorities.

The Pentagon created the El Paso-based JTF Six in 1989 after the White
House declared drugs a national security threat, opening the door to
limited military involvement in interdiction efforts. Civil rights
advocates quickly protested, arguing the move eroded the 1878 Posse
Comitatus act prohibiting the military from performing civilian law
enforcement functions.

It was "against the democratic values and beliefs of this country since the
Declaration of Independence," said Maria Jimenez, director of the
Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project, a watchdog group.

Critics also said the government was inviting tragedy, and Hernandez's
death on May 20, 1997, seemed to prove them right. Hernandez, who lived in
Redford, a remote border town 200 miles southeast of El Paso, had been
grazing his goats near the Rio Grande when he crossed paths with a four-man
Marine patrol assigned to keep watch on a suspected drug smuggling route.

What happened next has been a subject of debate. The Marines said Hernandez
fired at them twice with his .22 -caliber rifle, prompting the camouflaged
soldiers to trail him for about 20 minutes.

When he raised his rifle a third time, Cpl. Clemente Banuelos, fearing a
fellow Marine was in danger, fired a single shot that struck Hernandez
under the right armpit. Within the hour, the teen-ager was dead.

Family members say Hernandez would never have knowingly fired at the
Marines and that he carried the rifle only to shoot targets and protect his
goats from wild dogs. Local and federal authorities acknowledge he wasn't
involved in any wrongdoing when he was killed.

The military maintains Banuelos and his three fellow Marines acted
appropriately.

Banuelos was cleared by two grand juries, one federal and one convened by
Presidio County.

The decision outraged Hernandez's family and many Redford residents.

"It's something that you can't understand, why it happened, why they had to
kill him, why it had to be done," said Hernandez's older brother,
Margarito. "We can't accept they had a reason to kill him. It was wrong."

The Hernandez family is pursuing a claim against the government and has
been negotiating with the Justice Department for compensation, said family
attorney Bill Weinacht.

And Presidio County District Attorney Albert Valadez is considering whether
to reopen the case because he feels the county grand jury's examination
left unanswered questions.

Margarito Hernandez and civil rights advocates are pleased that the
military missions have been discontinued, but they fear the Pentagon could
reverse the decision. And in any event, JTF Six will still be involved with
police, including training them in military tactics.

"It's a different threat," said Tim Dunn, author of "Militarization of the
U.S.-Mexico Border." "It's a more severe threat if they're out there with
guns," he said. "But if the other facets of the relationship ... continue,
that's still dangerous."

Supporters of military involvement see a different threat. "We should not
unilaterally retreat from the war on drugs because there is a tragedy,"
said Paul Marcone, chief of staff for Rep. Jim Traficant, D-Ohio. "The
(suspension's) net effect is that we have more cocaine and heroin coming
into the United States." Traficant plans to reintroduce legislation this
year to allow increased military participation.

But Norman, the JTF Six spokesman, said he's not sure civilian agencies
want soldiers to return.

"If it became available to us, we'd have to take a long hard look at it,"
said Tomas Zuniga, a Dallas-based spokesman for the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. "Shame on me once, but not shame on me twice."

Copyright Los Angeles Times

Checked-by: jwjohnson@netmagic.net (Joel W. Johnson)