Border shooting spurs new military training

Officials defend use of Marines in drug war

By JOHN W. GONZALEZ Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle

EL PASO In a California forest near the Mexican border in 1991, a
poacher saw a greenish glint in the darkness. Assuming he was looking into
an animal's eyes, the poacher fired his rifle, wounding a camouflaged U.S.
Marine wearing nightvision optical gear.

In Northern California four years later, a carload of target shooters
rolled to a stop on a desolate forest road. A passenger got out and fired
randomly into the woods, striking a wellhidden U.S. Army soldier who was
stationed there to monitor illegal drug activity.

Although military rules of engagement allow firedupon troops to shoot
civilians in selfdefense, these soldiers held their fire after deciding
that they were attacked unintentionally.

But in May, on the stark desert terrain near Redford, Texas, a Marine who
felt threatened by a goat herder, who had fired two shots from a
.22caliber rifle, returned the fire with his M16. The 18yearold
civilian was killed, and new questions were raised about the wisdom of
using battleready troops in the border drug war.

Military officials adamantly defend the legal authority of the troops in
Texas to answer a perceived threat. But they also call the California
troops' decision not to shoot back an example of quick thinking, proper
training and restraint. They also acknowledge that new training has been
mandated since the Redford shooting to clarify that deadly force isn't
always warranted.

"The last thing we want to do is have the American people afraid of us,"
said Air Force Col. Henry Hungerbeeler, chief of staff of Joint Task
Force6, an El Pasobased command that has coordinated 3,300 military
counterdrug missions since its inception in 1989.

The shooting of Esequiel Hernandez in Redford has prompted a Presidio
County grand jury probe and a military investigation unprecedented in
the history of the U.S. armed forces' role in the war on drugs. Military
officials say it is the ninth incident in which gunfire has erupted during
JTF6 missions.

In the Redford shooting and three other confrontations, gunfire was
exchanged; in two of those cases, civilians were shot. (In addition to
Hernandez's death, an illegal Mexican immigrant was wounded near
Brownsville earlier this year.) In the other shooting incidents, the
military did not return gunfire, officials said.

JTF6 has faced more than flying bullets in its eightyear history. The
group is the target of persistent allegations that it trounces the civil
rights of border residents and illegal immigrants and harms the ecology of
the Southwest desert. It also gained notoriety for providing military
hardware to federal agents at the Branch Davidian siege near Waco in 1993.

The task force, authorized by Congress, operates under laws that bar the
military from making arrests, searches and seizures. Its charter requires
the military branches to assist federal, state and local law enforcement
agencies in combating drug shipments into the continental United States
a mission accomplished by scores of troops hidden along the border and
stationed in urban ports of entry.

Dressed to blend into the West Texas desert as they monitored a suspected
drug smuggler's route in the Big Bend area, the group of four Marines near
Redford was so stealthy that area residents weren't aware of their presence
for six days. The Marines had been secretly dropped from helicopters into
the barren foothills overlooking the Rio Grande, officials and residents
said.

Some Redford residents doubt that Hernandez intentionally threatened the
Marines, and state investigators cite autopsy reports showing the teen
likely was not aiming at the troops when he was shot.

Furthermore, the soldiers apparently were unaware that in February,
Hernandez had riled U.S. Border Patrol agents by firing his .22caliber
rifle while they were in the same area. Hernandez reportedly apologized to
the agents afterward and explained that he was trying to protect his goats
from stray dogs.

The residents and other critics accuse JTF6 officials of not adequately
preparing troops for their work on the border, and are urging prosecutors
to seek indictments of the four Marines, including Cpl. Clemente Banuelos
of Camp Pendleton, Calif., who fired the fatal M16 shot.

"We've seen helicopters going up and down the river for years now, but you
can't see these troops. They look like bushes," said Redford resident
Enrique Madrid. "Their job is not to be seen. They take pride in that. They
brag about it.

"They're a machine to kill the enemies of the U.S., and we're not the enemy
here," he complained. "It's just not the right way to stop the drug problem."

Hungerbeeler vigorously disputes those contentions.

"I take offense when people say that we're not adequately trained to be
doing what we're doing," he said.

However, he noted that JTF6 has revamped training in light of the Redford
shooting. New rehearsal scenarios are "primarily aimed at the proportional
use of force, trying to clarify that although deadly force might be
authorized, it might not be necessary," the colonel said.

Hungerbeeler said officials found that their current procedures "were
sound," but they have created "two new situational training exercises"
dealing with use of force.

Rigorous training helped the California units deal appropriately with their
confrontations, the colonel said, explaining those earlier two incidents.

"There was a poacher who was illegally hunting in the area and saw the
green glint from the (nightvision) optics and shot (the Marine). Shot him
in the jaw," he said, describing events that occurred in California's
Cleveland National Forest in 1991.

"His teammates observed this happening and obviously could have returned
fire and killed the poacher," Hungerbeeler said. "They had the capability
to shoot the guy that had shot him. They could legally have done so. But
they recognized there was no hostile intent, that it was an accident.

"I think his team showed remarkable discipline and training in the way they
handled that situation," he added. Then he described a 1995 shooting at Los
Padres National Forest.

"There was another situation where a team was on patrol in the forest and
observed people driving down a road close to their position. Honest to God,
they just happened to stop right there and start shooting at the woods, and
they hit one of the troops," he said.

"They could have returned fire in that case, but they knew it was an
accident. They knew the people firing didn't know they were there. So he
was accidentally shot. So they controlled the situation and nobody else got
hurt."

The task force draws on Air Force, Army, Marine and Navy units. Missions
have included detecting and observing smugglers, gathering intelligence for
police and patrolling the 2,000mile border in helicopters and on foot.

Laden with hightech gear, troops sometimes are posted several days at
remote locations, where they silently watch for illegal entries and
smuggling, then report their observations to law enforcement agents who are
authorized to make arrests and seizures.

JTF6 employs 169 people at their headquarters in the former stockade at
Biggs Army Air Field, adjacent to Fort Bliss near El Paso. The task force
collaborates with Operation Alliance, a coalition of federal law
enforcement agencies also based at Biggs Field. Operation Alliance screens
and prioritizes requests for help before referring them to JTF6, which
selects the military units to do them.

In the 199596 fiscal year, JTF6 deployed a total of 8,441 troops from
various units, officials said.

Many of the task force troops work at ports of entry, such as El Paso,
where most illegal drugs make their way into the United States in vehicles.
Other troops work in the Southeast, where traffickers rely on ships to
evade detection.

In the Southwest, troops help the U.S. Border Patrol, Customs Service and
Drug Enforcement Administration to guard against drug shipments from
Mexico. Banuelos was near Redford on a "listening postobservation post"
mission requested by the Border Patrol, officials said.

Hungerbeeler said JTF6 has conducted 576 such listening and observation
missions along the border. In each case, the military has obtained approval
from owners before operating on private land.

Because of the Redford controversy, the Border Patrol has temporarily
stopped requesting military listening and observation posts in West Texas
while patrol officials reexamine their worth.

For more than a century, U.S. law has forbidden the military from becoming
entangled in civilian law enforcement. But as the war on drugs has
escalated, that prohibition has been relaxed.

As early as 1982, at the urging of thenPresident Reagan, the Department of
Defense was authorized by Congress to conduct military training along the
border. In Texas, National Guard troops initially cleared brush and roads
along the Rio Grande to help the Border Patrol.

But the militarization of the border has increased dramatically in recent
years.

With the approval of Reagan's successor, George Bush, Congress extended
"detection and monitoring" authority to the military within 30 miles of the
border. On any given day, about 100 missions are under way without fanfare,
officials said.

"We try to minimize any possibility of confrontation with anybody,"
Hungerbeeler said. "Not just confrontation, we don't want to be seen. We
don't want to be noticed. We don't want to be heard. We don't want people
to know we're there.

"That's really of training value to us because of what we would have to do
in wartime."

Although JTF6 fields pleas for help from law enforcement agencies across
the nation, most petitions come from the Border Patrol. To help seal the
porous frontier, troops have patrolled, made aerial maps, planted
seismographic motion detectors and built several miles of solidsteel
fences in heavily trafficked areas of California and Arizona.

Task force lawyers review requests to make sure only those with a
counterdrug connection are authorized, officials said. Consequently, JTF6
declined a Border Patrol request to build a mammoth fence near El Paso in
New Mexico.

"Last year, we were instrumental in taking over $1 billion worth of drugs
off the table. That was over 150 tons of cocaine, and that's significant,"
Hungerbeeler said. He explained that the sum includes only those seizures
that law enforcement agencies said were made possible only with military
assistance.

Still, public concerns about JTF6 are widespread. Although task force
officials said they are proud of their environmental record, ecologists
claim that border fences are harming the habitat of jaguars, flattailed
horned lizards and other wildlife in Arizona and cut off movement across
the border.

"JTF6 is an agency that believes itself to be exempt from our nation's
wildlife laws," said David Hogan, desert rivers program coordinator for the
Southwest Biodiversity Project in Tucson, Ariz. "JTF6 has fundamentally
rejected any wildlife conservation measures on the border."

Immigration rights activists complain as well. They have described the
Redford shooting as a "human rights violation" that resulted from a "covert
operation."

"This was bound to happen," said Roberto Martinez of the American Friends
Services Committee in San Diego.

Gov. George W. Bush likewise has raised questions about JTF6. Responding
to a citizen's complaint about Hernandez's slaying, Bush said, "I am
concerned about the militarization of the Texas border. I support the use
of military equipment and supplies to help fight drug trafficking, but I
believe the U.S. Border Patrol should be in charge of the border."

Yet Hungerbeeler insisted that JTF6 fulfills a valuable purpose,
especially while the Border Patrol and DEA seem overwhelmed.

"I wish, personally, that the Border Patrol had all the resources that it
needs to do its job and didn't have to ask for help," he said. "I wish the
DEA did not have to ask for help. But in the meantime, we have a lot that
we can offer."