Friendly fire caused the death of US Border Patrol agent Nicholas Ivie and the wounding of a fellow agent near the Arizona-Mexico border this week. Three agents were patrolling a remote sector about five miles north of the border where sensors indicated the presence of smugglers, when two agents mistakenly opened fire on the third, authorities now say. Ivie himself is now said to have fired first. The clarification came after nearly a week of speculation that Mexican smugglers shot the agents. Yet, in a little-noticed contradiction to what is now the official story, Mexican police arrested two suspects within days of the shootingsâraising the possibility that the arrests were a politically motivated response to US pressure. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) was quick to politicize the death of the agent, claiming possible links to the “Fast and Furious” weapons scandal. Since Ivie was apparently killed by another US agentâusing a service weapon, according to ballistic reportsâGrassley may have to rescind his statement. (Mexico Solidarity Network, Oct. 8; AP, Oct. 7)
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Mexican youth killed by US Border Patrol
A 16-year-old boy, JosĂ© Antonio Elena RodrĂguez, was killed by a US Border Patrol agent Oct. 10, hit seven times by gunfire and dying on a sidewalk just across the Arizona-Mexico border in Nogales, Sonora. US authorities said they were responding to a drug shipment across the border when a group of youths on the Mexican side began throwing stones. Nogales Mayor RamĂłn GuzmĂĄn Muñoz called the episode “deplorable” and demanded a thorough investigation by both US and Mexican authorities.
“The disproportionate use of lethal force in the exercise of immigration control functions is unacceptable under any circumstances,” the Mexican Secretariat of Exterior Relations said in a statement. “These kinds of acts, especially because they are recurring, have been rejected by Mexican society and all of the country’s political powers.” (USA Today, Oct. 13; RT, AP, Oct. 12)