Early on May 31, a Border Patrol agent shot and killed Benito A. Gonzalez after trying to handcuff him in an unincorporated area north of Escondido, California, just east of Interstate 15. Gonzalez was an out-of-status immigrant who lived in Sun City in Riverside County. The incident began when undercover Border Patrol agents pulled over a van suspected of carrying unauthorized immigrants, arrested the driver and 11 passengers and took them to a Border Patrol station. Gonzalez arrived in a separate vehicle and according to officials, confronted the lone undercover agent who had stayed behind to wait for a tow truck. The agent and Gonzalez scuffled in a parking lot and again in an adjacent lot after Gonzalez tried to run away, sheriff’s investigators said. It was unclear whether Gonzalez was linked to the van stopped earlier. (San Diego Union Tribune, May 31; AP, June 5)
From Immigration News Briefs, June 24
See our last post on the immigration crackdown and the border struggle.
