Top Border Patrol official calls fatal shooting 'tragic'

By Douglas Holt / The Dallas Morning News

MARFA, Texas In a voice cracking with emotion, the nation's top Border
Patrol official called a Marine's fatal shooting of an 18yearold goat
herder a "tragedy" and offered condolences to the teen's family and
friends.

The incident was the first time a military member had fired on a U.S.
citizen since military forces were deployed in antidrug efforts on the
border beginning in the 1980s, officials said.

At the request of the Border Patrol, the Marine's fourman unit had been
stationed for three days about a mile south of Redford, a tiny community
on the Rio Grande, when the shooting occurred around dusk Tuesday.

"The Border Patrol is a member of the communities and families that live
along the border," U.S. Border Patrol Chief Agent Doug Kruhm said in a
news conference at his agency's Marfa sector headquarters. "Our mission
is to improve the quality of life along the border to stop criminal
activities, alien smuggling, the abuse of aliens and the insidious drug
smuggling into this country."

The victim, Ezequiel Hernandez Jr., did not fit into any of those
categories of border threats. He was a U.S. citizen, a high school
student and, as far as authorities know, not engaged in any criminal
activity.

"That's what makes this a tragedy," Agent Kruhm said.

The case has renewed debate over whether military personnel should be
deployed on U.S. soil to assist law enforcement efforts, border watchers
said.

In January, a Mexican man who entered the United States near Brownsville
was wounded after trading shots with a Green Beret stationed at a border
lookout post.

"These types of mishaps where people are getting shot who don't have
anything to do with drug trafficking are great evidence for pulling
ground troops away from the border," said Timothy Dunn, an El Paso
resident and author of The Militarization of the U.S.Mexico Border,
published by the University of Texas Press.

In response to Tuesday's fatal shooting, federal authorities ordered a
temporary pullout of military forces in the Big Bend area south of
Marfa. Nevertheless, officials maintained that the military can provide
skills and services beyond the capability of the Border Patrol.

Military intelligence gatherers, for example, have pinpointed spying
operations run by highly sophisticated drug gangs, Agent Kruhm of the
Border Patrol said.

Currently, about 700 military personnel are helping to support
drugfighting efforts along the border with Mexico, Agent Kruhm said.
About 120 of them are deployed within 5 kilometers of the border, he
said.

With drug smugglers pouring across the Rio Grande in recent years, Texas
officials and border ranchers have complained that the federal
government needs more Border Patrol agents to secure the border.

Officials on Thursday said they were unable to clear up the mystery
about why Mr. Hernandez fired two shots from his .22caliber rifle at
the fourmember team of U.S. Marines, deployed to listen and watch for
drug traffickers.

Family members said Mr. Hernandez routinely carried his rifle when
tending his goats to shoot snakes, coyotes or javelinas in the rugged,
remote area near the Rio Grande.

As Mr. Hernandez raised his rifle to shoot a third time, the Marine team
leader fired one shot with his M16, killing the young man, said Marine
Col. Thomas R. Kelly, deputy commander of the El Pasobased Joint Task
Force 6, which coordinates military assistance to law enforcement
agencies fighting drug traffickers.

No words were exchanged between the Marines and Mr. Hernandez; there was
a 35mph wind blowing at the time that prevented the Marines from
communicating with the man, officials said.

Officials declined to say how far apart the troops were from Mr.
Hernandez. Officials also declined to identify the Marine who fired the
fatal shot or specify his rank, other than as a noncommissioned officer
with three years' experience. His unit is based in Camp Pendleton,
Calif.

Despite complaints from family members and residents of the small town
of Redford, authorities continued to insist that the Marine's action was
appropriate.

"This was in strict compliance with the Joint Chiefs of Staff standing
rules of engagement," Col. Kelly told reporters at the news conference.

Those rules do not require trying to avoid killing someone perceived as
a real threat.

"You don't shoot to kill, you shoot to defend, and that's what they were
doing: shooting to defend themselves," Col. Kelly said. But he added,
"If you reach a point in which you fear for your life, you usually fire
to kill."

Col. Kelly said the Marine who fired the shot was attempting to defend a
fellow Marine who he believed was being targeted by Mr. Hernandez.

Col. Kelly also expressed condolences to the family and called the
shooting a "tragic incident."

The condolences did little to assuage the feelings of relatives and
friends who gathered outside the Border Patrol headquarters. They
questioned what business U.S. military forces have to patrol their
community armed with combat rifles.

"This is the United States of America, and we have a Constitution," said
the Rev. Melvin LaFollette, 66, a retired Episcopal priest who lives in
Redford and knows the Hernandez family. "The Constitution does not give
license to soldiers to wander around shooting everybody."

Diana Valenzuela, whose husband is related to the family, described Mr.
Hernandez as a cleancut, responsible person who took good care of his
herd of 30 or so goats, which he was raising as part of a plan to start
a cooperative cheesemaking business.

"This little boy was his parents' future," she said, adding that he had
talked of becoming a game warden. "He was going to take care of his
parents."

Contrary to family members who said they believed the young man was shot
in the back, implying that he had been shot while running away,
authorities said Thursday that he appeared to be shot in the front.

"It is my information the victim was shot in the torso area, which would
indicate to me it would be a frontal shot," Agent Kruhm said.

Although an official autopsy is not complete, a preliminary examination
appeared to show that the bullet entered in the rightfront rib cage and
did not exit, Presidio County Justice of the Peace Daniel Bodine said.

According to Mr. Bodine, the Marines were not clustered together when
the shooting occurred. While Mr. Hernandez was aiming in the direction
of one Marine, another off to the man's right shot him, he said.

"The direction he was aiming the gun was not the direction where the
fire came from," he said.

Military and Border Patrol officials offered no new evidence on the
details of what had occurred, declining to answer questions such as
whether .22caliber shells had been located.

They said they did not want to interfere with investigations under way
by the Presidio County sheriff's office, Texas Rangers, FBI, the Border
Patrol and military authorities.

The Border Patrol has suspended the use of military forces in the Marfa
sector, a 400mile stretch of border from Terrell County to Hudspeth
County in the Big Bend area.

More than 100 of Mr. Hernandez's family members and friends gathered
late Thursday in the small, onestory Redford First Baptist Church for
an allnight wake. Mr. Hernandez will be buried Friday in a crisp white
shirt and gold bolo tie he used to wear for special occasions.

His father, Ezequiel Hernandez, 51, greeted wellwishers as they stepped
from a light rain into the church, only a few hundred yards away from
the Rio Grande and in view of the scrub brush field where Mr. Hernandez
was shot.

"What have they done to my son?" Mr. Hernandez said, slapping the back
of a friend, Steve Mesa, in a teary embrace.

Mr. Hernandez said officials should hold the Marine team leader
accountable.

"What we want is justice and for something to be done about the man who
shot my son," he said.

The victim's oldest brother, Margarito Hernandez, 28, echoed the view of
many here in voicing deep suspicion of the military's growing role on
the border.

"These people are not trained to be around human beings," he said.
"They're trained to kill."