Posted on 02/13/2008 10:37:55 AM PST by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO – Border Patrol agents shot a suspected migrant smuggler early Wednesday in a predawn raid on a San Ysidro motel.
The injured man was hit in the leg, police said. He was taken to a San Diego hospital where his wound was deemed not life-threatening.
The incident began shortly after 3:30 a.m. when several uniformed Border Patrol agents entered Room 252 of the Economy Inn on Via de San Ysidro off Interstate 5, said San Diego police Capt. Cesar Solis.
That's where they confronted two Latino men, one of whom was known to have a history of immigrant smuggling.
One of the men was on the bed lying under a blanket, Solis said.
'They told both men repeatedly not to move, in Spanish,' the captain said. 'One complied and was taken into custody.”
The man under the blanket, however, continued to move about as if reaching for a weapon, Solis said. An agent then shot the man in the leg, he said.
The room is still being processed by investigators.
It's not yet known how many agents actually entered the room, how many fired, how many shots were fired or whether any weapons were found inside.
No Border Patrol agents were injured.
This was the second shooting in two weeks involving the Border Patrol. A man was shot Feb. 2 near the Golden Acorn casino on Old Highway 80 near Boulevard when he accelerated his truck toward plainclothes agents. He died two days later.
The Economy Inn has been the scene of two slayings in the recent past.
A motel employee found the body of Lee Woodard, 57, in one of its room on Oct. 25, 2006. Two men, Daniel Garcia and Jorge Alberto Naranjo, were arrested and are awaiting trial in that case.
Police returned there on Jan. 7, 2007 after witnesses reported someone firing shots into a room that had two people inside. In that room, they found 22-year-old David Ramos, mortally wounded. A second victim from that shooting, critically wounded, later turned up in a Mexican hospital.
Uh-oh! These border agents can look forward to going to prison at the hands of the Bush Justice Department...
Clearly we need to jail some more Border Patrol agents. Where is Johnny Sutton when you need him?
They need more range time.
I thought, if they use their gun, they are to shoot to kill. Or is this more compassionate conservatism crap?
Conservation, is more like it. Conserve bullets and don’t practice as much, is how I see it. Can’t hit his target... /sigh
(You beat me by a hair over 2 minutes, but it took a little time to find the movie.)
LOL that was a funny video.
Did you read the logo on the door?
US Border Patrol?
I reacted the same way, I've heard him now a couple of times on radio shows, and he is one weasely guy.
Whatever tendency I might have had to give the prosecutor benefit of the doubt flew out the window after listening to Sutton dance and spin.
He's making his bones going after Border Patrol. Its shameful. If they violated policy, if it was a bad shoot, they deserved a bad performance review or even to be terminated. They do not deserve jail time.
ping
Bttt!
What gets me is we all expect the Border Patrol to- as their name would imply- protect the border; yet no one has their back. Not only do they have a very real fear of prosecution if they make the wrong move, they also have to deal with the real fear of the job. I saw on FOX news this morning that smugglers had rigged a wire along the border designed to catch BP on 4 wheelers at about neck height- which if it worked would likely decapitate them. Not only do they deal with tricks like that- they are at times outgunned and have to worry about politics if confronted by Mexican Military.
Lovely situation- supposedly we are hiring more BP officers; I can’t imagine who would want the job.
Exactly. If I mess up, maybe I get a bad review, maybe I get fired. If they mess up, they've got prosecutors wanting to put them away for life just to make their reputations.
No job pays that well, and BP agents don't actually get paid very well in any case.
So any kid wanting to go into law enforcement, I would never recommend BP as a career. You're just asking to be a notch in some prosecutor's belt, and they aren't going to let you do your job in any case. So why waste your life there?
I always believe that if you're going to send a man into a difficult situation to do a difficult job, you owe it to him to stand behind him, support him, and give him some benefit of doubt when things go wrong. Not a blank check, but some understanding of what he has to go through to do his job should be basic.
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