A Border Patrol agent shot and killed a suspected smuggler at the fence that separates El Paso from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, authorities said today.Jose Alejandro Ortiz Castillo, a 23-year-old man who had been caught crossing the border 28 times since 1999, died in Mexico shortly after the Wednesday night shooting, Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier said.
An unidentified Border Patrol agent, spotted Ortiz apparently leading two men and a woman through a hole in the border fence just east of downtown El Paso. Ortiz, armed with bolt cutters, picked up a rock as the agent was arresting the woman, Mosier said.
The agent fired several shots, hitting Ortiz “multiple times,” Mosier said. It was the agent’s first fatal shooting.
Mosier said the agent “felt threatened by the actions of the assailant who was holding a rock and bolt cutters.”
Ortiz and two men in the group ran back into Mexico. Ortiz’s body was found at the edge of the Rio Grande. The woman was taken into custody and may be held as a material witness.
Mosier said Ortiz was deported from the U.S. in 2004.
Wednesday’s incident was the third shooting at the border in El Paso in as many months. The agents involved in the most recent shooting in July have been cleared by a federal grand jury, Mosier said.
The last fatal shooting in the El Paso Sector, which includes two far West Texas counties and all of New Mexico, was in 2004 in Lordsburg, N.M.
The Border Network for Human Rights, an immigrant advocacy group, condemned the latest shooting.
“When one incident happens, and it seems it’s an isolated incident and the reasons are because…there was a real threat against an agent, that seems reasonable,” said Fernando Garcia, the group’s director. “But when there is a series of events, you start questioning things.”
Garcia said his primary concern is that it appears that agents are taking a “shoot first and ask questions later” approach to their work on the border.
“For instance, let’s concede that this guy (Ortiz) has a criminal background, the agent doesn’t know that,” Garcia said, referring to reports that Ortiz is a member of a Mexican street gang. “So now the policy is to shoot first.”
Mosier declined to specifically address Garcia’s comments, but said agents are within their rights to defend themselves.
“Agents have the authority and the obligation to protect themselves and innocent parties,” Mosier said.
He said shootings are on the rise because more agents are being assaulted. Agents have suffered serious head injuries after being pelted with rocks and other projectiles.
Wednesday night’s shooting is at least the third fatal shooting incident involved Border Patrol agents in border states this year.
Nicholas Corbett, a 41-year-old agent in Bisbee, Ariz., shot and killed an illegal crosser from Mexico in January. He has been ordered to stand trial in federal court on a charge of second-degree murder. Corbett has claimed self defense.
Last month, an undercover border agent in the San Diego area fatally shot an illegal immigrant from Mexico after the pair reportedly scuffled over control of a gun.
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