• Autopsy: US Border Patrol agents shot Mexican teen 7 times from behind

    Alonso Castillo / Reuters, file

    Relatives pray beside a coffin containing the body of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez during his funeral in Nogales, Mexico, on Oct. 14. A U.S. Border Patrol agent fired at suspected drug smugglers across the border into Mexico late Oct. 10, and the teen was hit seven times, an autopsy showed.

    By Tim Gaynor, Reuters

    A Mexican teenager killed when the U.S. Border Patrol opened fire on a group of rock throwers in Mexico last year was shot at least seven times from behind, an autopsy by Mexican authorities showed.

    Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, 16, was shot as agents fired into Nogales, Mexico, after responding to reports of drug trafficking on Oct 10.

    An attorney for the Elena Rodriguez family, Luis F. Parra, released a copy of the Mexican medical examiner's report on Thursday.

    The autopsy was conducted several hours after the shooting. It found that the teen had been struck in the head, neck and body by at least seven bullets fired from behind him. It described several other bullet injuries, some of which may have been exit wounds.

    Following the shooting, Mexican authorities condemned the U.S. Border Patrol's use of lethal force and called for a timely and transparent investigation.

    In a written statement, the Border Patrol said the incident began shortly before midnight on October 10 when agents responded to reports of two suspected smugglers, who they watched drop drugs on the Arizona side of the border.

    The smugglers then fled back across the border into Mexico and "began assaulting the agents with rocks." An unnamed agent opened fire after the suspects refused orders to stop, the patrol said.

    News pictures taken shortly after the October shooting showed Elena Rodriguez' apparently lifeless body face down on the sidewalk a few yards south of the border fence, which consists of parallel steel barriers.

    Alonso Castillo / Reuters, file

    A cross is seen at the U.S.-Mexico border near the site where Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was found dead.

    The FBI has been leading the investigation into the shooting. A spokesman for the agency's Phoenix division declined on Thursday to comment on the autopsy or the continuing investigation.

    Parra did not immediately respond to a request on Thursday for comment on the autopsy's findings.

    Elena Rodriguez was the second Mexican teenager killed in a clash with the Border Patrol in the Mexican border city in less than two years. In January 2011, an agent fired into Mexico, killing 17-year-old Ramses Barron of Nogales.

    The Elena Rodriguez shooting came more than a week after a Border Patrol agent was shot dead near the border in an apparent friendly fire incident.

    Arizona is on a major route for Mexican smuggling networks hauling drugs and illegal immigrants to the United States, and running guns and cash profits back south to Mexico.

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  • Border Patrol shoots Mexican man from across border

    By Isolde Raftery, NBC News

    A U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a young Mexican man who had fled across the border into Mexico, the agency said.


    The Border Patrol issued a statement Thursday saying that agents responded around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday to reports of two suspected drug smugglers on the U.S. side of the border in Nogales, Ariz.

    The agents reported seeing the men “drop a narcotics load” on the U.S. side of the border before jumping a wall or a fence to flee into Mexico.

    Once in Mexico, according to the Border Patrol account, the men started throwing rocks at the agents. When they refused to stop, “one agent discharged his service firearm.”

    Field supervisors have been ordered by Washington officials to downplay the smuggling threats, a former DEA supervisor says – a charge U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehemently denies. NBC's Mark Potter reports.

     

    “One of the subjects appeared to have been hit,” the Border Patrol statement says. Border Patrol immediately notified the Mexican government; on the U.S. side, the investigation into the shooting is being led by the FBI.

    The man was hit 10 times from behind, a doctor in the area told Telemundo. Municipal and state investigative police also said the man was shot several times. They said they found the man, in his mid-20s or early 30s, lying on his stomach.

    The man was about 32 feet -- about the length of a yellow school bus -- from the international line when he was shot, Telemundo reported. 

    About 5,200 Border Patrol agents patrol the Arizona border with Mexico, spokesman Victor Brabble said. That’s 859 more agents than in 2010, representing the Obama administration’s commitment to adding more agents to the border.

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  • Border Patrol: Agents fire back at drug traffickers in Mexico

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican drug traffickers fought a gun battle across the Rio Grande in south Texas, authorities said Friday, the latest of a spate of cross-border shootings.

    The Border Patrol said gunfire erupted Wednesday after agents confronted smugglers loading bundles of marijuana into two vehicles on the banks of the Rio Grande west of Roma, Texas, a town about 250 miles south of San Antonio.

    The agents opened fire after smugglers fleeing in a vehicle attempted to run them over, the Border Patrol said. Armed traffickers on the Mexican side of the river then shot at the agents, who returned fire into Mexico, the Border Patrol said.

    "Our agents had a posed threat," Rosalinda Huey, a spokeswoman with the Border Patrol's Rio Grande sector told Reuters. "They're trained to deal with that situation," she added.

    No agents were injured by the gunfire and it is unclear whether any smugglers in Mexico were struck by bullets, she said.

    Agents subsequently recovered nearly two tons of marijuana, with a value of more than $3 million. No arrests were made.

    The shooting came during one of three raids in the area Wednesday, said NBC Station KZTV.

    One investigation in nearby Rio Grande City resulted in the seizure of 2,800 pounds of marijuana worth about $2.2 million when agents followed footprints to the entrance of an underground storage bunker, KZTV said. In another incident Wednesday, agents checking a vehicle driving without headlights ended at a home near Rio Grande City where agents saw several people flee. Three suspects were nabbed and agents found 1,400 pounds, or $1.1 million worth, of marijuana in an underground bunker, KZTV said.

    Huey said traffickers opening fire on agents was "just another tactic" as they sought to move drugs across the U.S. border, where additional agents, equipment and infrastructure have contributed to tightening security in recent years.

    "Obviously, they've gotten more desperate," she said. "They're going to use more tactics to avoid apprehension or seizure of their narcotics."

    The same stretch of the Rio Grande -- Rio Bravo in Mexico -- recorded one other shooting incident involving Border Patrol agents since October 2011, Huey said. No injuries were reported.

    Last year agents engaged in gunfire with suspected drug runners near the south Texas town of Abram, according to news reports. In a separate incident, a West Texas road crew in Hudspeth County, east of El Paso, also came under fire from Mexico. And in September 2010, U.S. citizen David Hartley was fatally shot while riding a personal watercraft on Falcon Lake, which straddles the Texas-Mexico border.

    This article includes reporting by Reuters.

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