Posted on 02/26/2005 2:47:59 PM PST by SandRat
Sheriff says he may not have known he'd shot drug backpacker, who died.
Criminal investigators have determined that a U.S. Border Patrol agent who shot and killed a drug backpacker last Saturday was not being threatened at the time, officials with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department said Friday.
The agent, though, may not have known he had shot somebody, said Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada.
The dead man, Julio Cesar Yenez Ramirez, 31, from Nogales, Sonora, was shot through the right arm and the bullet pierced his heart and lung, exiting through the left armpit, Estrada said.
He said Yenez Ramirez had been picked up by Border Patrol agents and deported six times previously.
Estrada gave this account of the shooting:
Three agents closed in on a group of 12 men carrying about 300 pounds of marijuana at 4 a.m. Saturday. The agents approached from different angles and one, the shooter, spooked the group, which scattered, dropping six packs of marijuana.
"At that point, for reasons we still need to clarify, the agent fired one round," Estrada said. As the other two agents came up, they reported, they heard Yenez Ramirez moaning on the ground.
He died at the scene.
It appears that the agent didn't know he had shot the man, though he was wearing night-vision goggles, Estrada said. "He was not being shot at, he was not being attacked."
If investigators conclude there was a wrongful death, the case will be turned over to the County Attorney's Office for possible prosecution, he said.
The agent has returned to normal patrol duties, said Rob Daniels, spokesman for the agency's Tucson sector.
Ip date on illegals being shot by border patrol agent.
Something doesn't pass the sniff test here. Why is the guy still on the job? Why didn't he know he had shot someone?
This should be interesting...
So an invasion of the country by criminals is stopped and one of the criminals will not do it again.
A good start.
If he had been sent prison the second time he was picked up he would probably be alive today. On the other hand some would say that he should have been shot the first time instead of the seventh.
To bad he didn't know he shot the other 11.
He should be questioned on why he did not shoot them all.
By definition, this putz, Julio Cesar Yenez Ramirez, is murdering American citizens with the crap he smuggles. He is supporting the narco trafficers who have murdered hundreds, if not thousands of Americans and citizen's of other countries.
His death is on his own head, not this border partol agents.
The way I read what was said, the agent is claiming that he didn't intend to actually shoot anybody, but either intentionally fired what was supposed to merely be a warning shot, or else he was surprised/startled into firing his gun unintentionally.
Good riddance. 6 time loser. Issue them all ammo, and strike a medal for the shooter. Enough is much too much. Border protection is not a damned game.
12 to 3, Zero-dark thirty, perhaps the gun discharged when the smugglers were startled...whatever, small loss, dangerous circumstances ususally lead to dangerous acts.
These BP guys should have had more back-up, and should have been packing m-16's or shotguns, along with their sidearms.
6 TIMES! And he just keeps getting returned like a recyclable. AT least charge the Mexican Government a "deposit fee"!
The article says he was picked up 6 times, Only God knows how many and what kind of drugs he has smuggled into America and how many times he has actually been across.
I have a problem feeling any regret that he was shot. As far as I am concerned the BP had every right to shoot this criminal.
No sympathy here for drug smuggling criminals.
Perhaps he fired a warning shot into the air.
And the smuggler was "high".
We need to protect out borders, please President Bush make this a priority,
This BP agent was only doing his job.. now we have a dead illegal to send back to his country.. it is very very costly to send back dead illegals, and being deported as many times as he was he should of been in prison for commiting a felony. and he would be alive.and thus deported one more time.. unless we control our borders he would be back... guaranteed...
Maybe it was celebratory gunfire and the bullet just came down an hit the guy!
If there had been sufficient border boundary obstacles (walls, fences, trenches, sensors, UAVs, patrols, etc) he would be alive today. If we were enforcing our immigration laws and deporting those who are illegally working here and prosecuting those who illegally hire them and that had been made sufficiently clear to those pondering an attempt to cross our sufficiently protected borders, he would be alive today.
They should all be shot, IMHO.
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