Under fire, Border Patrol says agents kill only ‘as last resort’

[alp227]

Source: McClatchy DC

MEXICO CITY — Under fire for killing 21 people along the Southwest border since 2010, the Border Patrol says its agents use lethal force only “as a last resort,” even as the Cabinet secretary who oversees the agency has promised Congress that he’ll personally review recent cases “to ensure that we’re getting this right.”

A McClatchy report Thursday documented how a Border Patrol agent on Jan. 16 shot and killed a 31-year-old migrant who appeared to be on his knees or on the ground off a highway in southeastern Arizona.

The Border Patrol says the victim, Gabriel Sanchez Velazquez, lunged for the service firearm of one of its agents, meriting his shooting death. The agent’s identity has been kept secret.

After the news story was published, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, the umbrella agency that oversees the Border Patrol, issued a statement late Thursday, saying Border Patrol agents “may use deadly force only when the agent or officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury” to the agent or anyone else.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/02/28/219786/under-fire-border-patrol-says.html

[Shrike47]

1. Fewer than unarmed citizens killed by local police, I'll wager.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

2. They show "great restraint" until they kill an unarmed person, then come up with a face saving

pass-the-buck excuse. . .and most Americans accept it because badge sniffing is an American hobby.

[merrily]

3. What does anyone expect them to say?

[OnyxCollie]

4. Or if a rock is thrown.

Then it's game on.

[ManiacJoe]

5. A large enough rock is a deadly weapon.

[OnyxCollie]

6. Excessive Force? Migrant Shot Dead by U.S. Border Agent Near San Diego After Throwing Rock

Excessive Force? Migrant Shot Dead by U.S. Border Agent Near San Diego After Throwing Rock
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/20/excessive_force_migrant_shot_dead_by

JOHN CARLOS FREY: The most recent report that I’ve read and the report that comes out of those that are investigating in the sheriff’s department in the area say that a Border Patrol agent was in pursuit of a migrant, separated from his partner. He was by himself. The suspected migrant started throwing rocks. There’s even an allegation that he threw a basketball-sized rock towards the agent—I’m not quite sure how you can do that. And the agent opened fire, fired twice, striking the migrant and killing him. And this seems to be a pattern. Obviously, the migrant’s not going to be able to speak up for himself as to what happened. But agents are allowed to use deadly force when being confronted with rock throwing. And that seems to be what happened here.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how is the Border Patrol justifying its rejection of a recommendation of its own inspector general on its policies for shootings of unarmed migrants?

JOHN CARLOS FREY: If you take a look at the recommendations, they’re actually quite sane. PERF, which is the think tank, the Police Executive Research Forum, it’s a group of law enforcement officers, professionals, who recommended to U.S. Border Patrol agents not necessarily to take away any sort of use of force when confronted with rock throwers, but to tamp it down, to de-escalate the situation, to move from the area, to actually physically move from the region where rocks are being thrown, or to take cover or to use nonlethal force. Those were the recommendations by PERF, and Border Patrol decided to deny all of those. They would like to still be able to use deadly force.

They claim in the past 10 years there have been about 6,000 confrontations with rock throwers. But there never has been an agent killed by rock throwers, so the use of deadly force seems a bit excessive, if agents themselves have never been killed by rocks. If you go to any major law enforcement agency in the country, in the United States, killing or shooting rock throwers, using guns to shoot rock throwers, would be forbidden by police agencies across the country. So it’s interesting that Border Patrol claim that it’s a necessity for them.

[ManiacJoe]

7. Yup. Sometimes excessive, sometimes not.