Mexico to Seek Diplomatic Solution to Border Shooting

Mexican authorities said Wednesday that they plan to seek a diplomatic remedy in Washington to the second incident in less than three years of a Mexican citizen being shot by U.S. agents in a rock-throwing confrontation along the border near Otay Mesa.

“It’s an international incident and it has become a diplomatic matter,” said Jose L. Cuevas of the Mexican Consulate in San Diego. “Our embassy will take certain steps and present a diplomatic note to the U.S. Department of State.”

Cuevas was referring to the Monday night shooting by U.S. Border Patrol agents of a 23-year-old Mexican national who he declined to identify.

According to U.S. officials, the victim was shot once in the abdomen when Border Patrol agents fired across the border to protect themselves and an illegal alien in their custody. The shooting occurred about a mile west of the Otay Mesa border crossing.

(San Diego television station KGTV Channel 10 Wednesday night reported that the victim of the shooting was Ignacio Mendez and said he underwent three hours of surgery in Mexico for a bullet lodged in his spine.

(The station quoted the victim as saying he briefly entered the United States, then fled from Border Patrol agents, jumped a fence and returned to the Mexican side of the border “when I felt a bullet hit my back.”)

Harold Ezell, western regional commissioner for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the two Border Patrol agents--who he declined to name--believed a group of Mexicans were actually firing guns at them because the rock-throwing incident produced heavy damage to their vehicle and injured the alien they had in custody.

“You ought to see our vehicle,” Ezell said. “It looks like a shotgun had blown the window open. And look at the face of this poor guy sitting there. He was an alien that we caught coming across the border. He’s an innocent guy in our custody sitting there when this thing goes down and this boulder hits him in the face.

“He yelled out in Spanish ‘I’ve been hit’ and the window looks like a shotgun blew it out. It’s a wonder the guy didn’t lose an eye.”

However Mike Nicley, a Border Patrol spokesman in San Diego, said it was his understanding the agents did not think they were being shot at. Instead, he said, the agents fired across the border to protect themselves from the rocks.

“The agents said they were firing in defense of their lives,” Nicley said.

While both U.S. and Mexican authorities are continuing to investigate the shooting, Cuevas said the Mexican government plans to present a diplomatic note to the U.S. State Department expressing its concern about the shooting and its similarity to an incident in 1985 in which a 12-year-old Mexican boy was wounded by Border Patrol gunfire across the border.

Nicley said three rounds were fired by the agents in the Monday night incident. Neither of the agents was injured by the rocks, but Nicley said the illegal alien inside the Border Patrol vehicle suffered facial cuts and a broken nose. He declined to release the name of the alien, who was treated at a San Diego hospital and remains in INS custody.