300 From Both Sides of Border Gather to Protest Boy’s Shooting

About 300 people gathered peacefully on both sides of the international border Saturday to protest recent incidents involving Border Patrol agents, including the shooting of an unarmed 12-year-old Mexican boy who was wounded when an agent fired into Mexico.

About 150 protesters from each side of the border marched to the scene of the April 18 shooting, about one-quarter mile east of the San Ysidro port of entry, where Humberto Carrillo Estrada was wounded by Agent Edward (Ned) Cole.

Cole fired three times at the boy, hitting him once in the back. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials said that Cole was justified in shooting at Humberto because the boy and a teen-age girl were throwing rocks and bottles at agents as they arrested Humberto’s brother on suspicion of entering the United States illegally.

The American demonstrators met at a city park in this border city and marched about 1 1/2 miles on the U.S. side to the spot where Cole had fired through the fence at Humberto. The Mexican group marched about one-quarter mile from the border crossing to the site where the boy fell, slumped against a cement wall. Both groups gave speeches as a Border Patrol helicopter circled above and crossed back and forth across the border.

At 8:30 a.m., two hours before the rally began, workmen on the U.S. side were busy patching the many holes in the fence, through which residents of Colonia Libertad on the Mexican side routinely cross into San Ysidro to shop. On the day that Humberto was shot, his brother, Eduardo, was arrested while returning to Mexico after crossing into the United States to buy a hamburger at a fast-food restaurant.

On Saturday, some of the local children were kidding with the American workers who were mending the fence.

“How are we going to be able to go to McDonald’s and Jack-in-the-Box now that you’re patching up the holes?” a child asked. “ La migra won’t let us use the border crossing so we have to use the holes in the fence.”

Roque Reyes, a longtime resident of the colonia, told the boys not to worry. “There will be new and bigger holes in the fence by tomorrow morning, muchachos. In the meantime, you’ll have to get along by eating tacos.”

In addition to the Carrillo shooting, the demonstrators were protesting what they described as:

- The May 5 beating of Calexico doctor Jose Cisneros by Agent Kevin Jarvis in Calexico. Cisneros said he was handcuffed by Jarvis, then kicked in the head and torso. The doctor was jailed and later released without being charged in the incident, which Jarvis later called a “misunderstanding.”

- The choking of Sergio H. Alonso of Lemon Grove on May 19 by an unidentified agent. Alonso charged that he was returning from weekend duty with other Army reservists when they stopped at the rest stop near the INS San Clemente checkpoint. An unidentified agent accused him of being an illegal alien and applied a chokehold, Alonso said. He has filed a $1-million claim against the INS.

- An incident involving Agent Robert M. Ferrick, who was arrested by Calexico police on June 2 after a 14-year-old Mexican youth said that he had been kidnaped, assaulted and terrorized by Ferrick for three days.

The protest was monitored on the Mexican side by about 20 officers from various local, state and federal police agencies, including Gerardo Olachea Sosa, Tijuana’s police chief. About an equal number of San Diego police officers and Border Patrol agents monitored the rally on the U.S. side. Police from both countries stayed far removed from the protest and made no effort to interfere.

While speakers from the U.S. groups spoke out against INS policy and the Simpson-Mazzoli immigration reform bill, speakers on the Mexican side launched a broad attack against Reagan Administration policies toward Mexico and Central America. The Mexicans also protested what they said was acquiescence by their government to the Border Patrol in the Carrillo shooting.

San Diego County Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller decided against prosecuting Cole, saying the agent’s actions were justifiable under California law because Cole believed his life and thoseof the other agents were in danger. The boy’s attorney, however, has presented new evidence in the case, and Miller’s office has agreed to study the information to determine if the investigation should be reopened.

Shouts of “death to Reagan” were common on the Mexican side, and both sides shouted slogans against the INS, calling agents assassins who murder children.

Sergio Chavez, speaking for the Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Humberto Carrillo, denounced the INS for the agency’s treatment of illegal aliens.

“They are not criminals, and we demand that they not be treated as criminals,” Chavez said.

Littered at the rally site among the rocks and household trash that is dumped on the U.S. side of the border were blank INS I-274 forms. The form is given to apprehended illegal aliens, instructing them that they have a right to a deportation hearing, right to an attorney or that they can choose a speedy voluntary deportation.

One man pushed several of the forms through holes in the chain link fence. Laughing protesters on the Mexican side said they would give them to the pollos (illegal aliens) crouched farther down the hill who were awaiting nightfall and a chance to cross into the United States.