Border Agents Say They Can’t Link Bandit Suspect to Robberies

Members of the Border Crimes Prevention Unit testified Monday that they could not directly link either a suspected border bandit killed in a May shoot-out with police, or his brother, to any robberies on the night of the incident.

The officers and Border Patrol agents testified at the trial of Jaime Arroyo Zaragoza, a Mexican citizen who is being tried on charges of attempted murder and robbery. Arroyo’s older brother, Julio Arroyo Zaragoza, 33, died during the gun battle in the border canyons about one-quarter mile east of the San Ysidro border crossing. A third unidentified suspect escaped.

Police say the three men were robbing illegal aliens when they were confronted by the Border Crimes Prevention Unit, composed of Border Patrol agents and San Diego police officers. Homicide investigators recovered U.S. and Mexican currency from Julio Arroyo’s body and several watches and other pieces of jewelry they believed had been taken from robbery victims.

Family members told police that Julio Arroyo was a former Mexico City policeman and was to have begun working as a policeman with the Tijuana municipal police two days after his death.

Agent Fred Stevens, 39, was shot five times when he exchanged gunfire with Julio Arroyo. Stevens was saved by an armored vest that stopped two bullets aimed at his chest from six feet away. He was also hit in the left hip, left wrist and right thigh. Stevens recovered from his injuries and is back on duty.

Police say that officer Cesar Solis fired the fatal 9-millimeter bullet that struck Julio Arroyo in the middle of the forehead, at the hairline. Solis and agent John Crocitto arrested Jaime Arroyo before the shooting began, but Solis testified that police have no evidence that he had committed any illegal acts.

Investigators recovered a .22-caliber revolver from the bush by which Jaime Arroyo was arrested. Although the weapon was never fired, Solis and Crocitto have testified that Jaime Arroyo approached them with his right hand in a jacket pocket, in a manner that led them to believe he was armed.

Agent Thomas Looker and police Sgt. Larry K. Bender testified that on the night of the shooting they saw three men following groups of aliens as they migrated north through the canyons. At one point, Bender said, he saw the men approach a group and “take them down,” while one of the suspects remained standing.

Bender said that, based on his experience in the canyons, he believed that the men were robbing the aliens. However, Bender said he could not identify the Arroyo brothers as being among the three men he observed following and robbing the groups of aliens. Looker testified that he observed the three men but said he never saw them contact any aliens.

“That is correct,” Bender said when defense attorney Jose Tafolla asked him if it was true that he could not identify the suspects. He added that he could not tell if the suspects he observed were armed.

The shooting sparked an international controversy, when Tijuana coroner Gustavo Salazar conducted an autopsy on Julio Arroyo’s exhumed body and reported that he died from a bullet fired at point-blank range. Police said that Arroyo was shot from a distance of 30 feet to 40 feet, and an autopsy that had been conducted by the San Diego County coroner’s office before Arroyo was buried in Tijuana supported the police version of the shooting.

Laboratory tests performed after the exhumation by defense pathologist Dr. Hormez Guard, a former county pathologist who is now a critic of the coroner’s office, revealed traces of gunpowder and supported Salazar’s findings. But subsequent tests conducted by the coroner’s office on the tissue samples studied by Guard revealed no traces of gunpowder, said Coroner David Stark.

Jaime Arroyo’s trial will continue today before Superior Court Judge Wesley Buttermore, and the defense is expected to begin calling its witnesses.