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Guats,' 'Tonks' and 'Subhuman Shit': The Shocking Texts of a Border Patrol Agent [View all]
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/matthew-bowen-border-patrol-trial-847878/How an Arizona officer accused of hitting a migrant with his truck could put his agency’s toxic culture on trial
In the days before he allegedly struck a 23-year-old undocumented Guatemalan man with a government-issued Ford F-150, Border Patrol agent Matthew Bowen sent a text to a fellow agent. In the exchange, which federal prosecutors now claim offers “insight into his view of the aliens he apprehends,” Bowen railed against unauthorized migrants who’d thrown rocks at a colleague as “mindless murdering savages” and “disgusting subhuman shit unworthy of being kindling for a fire.” The text message also includes a plea to the president: “PLEASE let us take the gloves off trump!”
Two weeks later, on December 3rd, 2017, Bowen was on patrol near Nogales, Arizona, when he spotted a suspected unauthorized border crosser. Identified as Antolin Rolando Lopez-Aguilar in a federal affidavit, the man had been hiding but took off running back toward the Nogales point of entry, “in an apparent effort to avoid apprehension,” the affidavit states.
Instead of pursuing Lopez-Aguilar on foot, Bowen chased after him in his federal vehicle, known as a “Kilo Unit” in Border Patrol lingo. As caught on camera, Bowen maneuvered “the front grille of the truck directly behind Lopez-Aguilar,” according to the affidavit. With the F-150 bearing down on him, Lopez-Aguilar reached back “to ‘push off’ of the hood” before Bowen “accelerated the… Kilo Unit directly into the back of Lopez-Aguilar’s body, knocking Lopez-Aguilar to the ground,” the document states. The Ford’s tires came to a full stop “within inches of running Lopez-Aguilar over where he lay on the ground.”
. . .
Bowen’s trial is due to begin in August. But the case is already shining a spotlight on a troubled culture at Border Patrol, the law enforcement arm of Customs and Border Protection, at a moment when both agencies have been grappling with a surge in migrants, and faced allegations of widespread wrongdoing, ranging from physical and sexual abuse of minors to housing migrants in substandard shelters, including one likened to “a human dog pound.”
The text exchanges between Bowen and fellow agents — entered into the court record by the defense, which seeks to exclude them at trial — suggest a work environment in which demeaning epithets, ranging from “guat” to “fucking beaners,” are common, and in which violence against undocumented border crossers is treated as a joke.
Throughout the texts, illegal border crossers are referred to as “tonks.” A federal court case from 2004, which also centered on accusations of excessive force by the Border Patrol, includes an agent’s definition of “tonk” as “the sound heard when a ‘wetback’ is hit over the head with a flashlight.”
https://www.scribd.com/document/413294879/BowenTextsExhibit
Two weeks later, on December 3rd, 2017, Bowen was on patrol near Nogales, Arizona, when he spotted a suspected unauthorized border crosser. Identified as Antolin Rolando Lopez-Aguilar in a federal affidavit, the man had been hiding but took off running back toward the Nogales point of entry, “in an apparent effort to avoid apprehension,” the affidavit states.
Instead of pursuing Lopez-Aguilar on foot, Bowen chased after him in his federal vehicle, known as a “Kilo Unit” in Border Patrol lingo. As caught on camera, Bowen maneuvered “the front grille of the truck directly behind Lopez-Aguilar,” according to the affidavit. With the F-150 bearing down on him, Lopez-Aguilar reached back “to ‘push off’ of the hood” before Bowen “accelerated the… Kilo Unit directly into the back of Lopez-Aguilar’s body, knocking Lopez-Aguilar to the ground,” the document states. The Ford’s tires came to a full stop “within inches of running Lopez-Aguilar over where he lay on the ground.”
. . .
Bowen’s trial is due to begin in August. But the case is already shining a spotlight on a troubled culture at Border Patrol, the law enforcement arm of Customs and Border Protection, at a moment when both agencies have been grappling with a surge in migrants, and faced allegations of widespread wrongdoing, ranging from physical and sexual abuse of minors to housing migrants in substandard shelters, including one likened to “a human dog pound.”
The text exchanges between Bowen and fellow agents — entered into the court record by the defense, which seeks to exclude them at trial — suggest a work environment in which demeaning epithets, ranging from “guat” to “fucking beaners,” are common, and in which violence against undocumented border crossers is treated as a joke.
Throughout the texts, illegal border crossers are referred to as “tonks.” A federal court case from 2004, which also centered on accusations of excessive force by the Border Patrol, includes an agent’s definition of “tonk” as “the sound heard when a ‘wetback’ is hit over the head with a flashlight.”
https://www.scribd.com/document/413294879/BowenTextsExhibit
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