Coroner’s Report Key to Alien’s Death Probe

This much is clear: On the evening of Feb. 7, Epitacio Martin Aguilera, a 25-year-old undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol in San Ysidro. While in custody, he complained that he “needed air,” according to the Border Patrol.

Barely more than an hour after his arrest, Aguilera died at Scripps Memorial Hospital in Chula Vista.

Aguilera was one of two illegal immigrants to die after being in the custody of the Border Patrol in California last month. In both cases, immigrant advocates have questioned whether medical treatment was provided quickly enough.

More than a month after Aguilera died, the exact cause of his death remains unknown, pending release of an autopsy report by the San Diego County Coroner. The findings of that report will determine whether the case will be treated as a potential homicide, said Sgt. C.T. Martin, who is handling the case for the San Diego police homicide division. Local police have jurisdiction in possible homicides.

Varying Accounts

While the Border Patrol has defended its role in the matter, patrol authorities have also provided varying accounts of Aguilera’s behavior during the 50 minutes or so that officials say he was in custody.

Meanwhile, a Los Angeles attorney representing Aguilera’s family has voiced doubts about whether Aguilera received timely medical attention while in custody.

“One has to wonder whether they (Border Patrol officials) acted with diligence in getting medical treatment for him,” said the attorney, Antonio H. Rodriguez, who represents Ines Jurado Aguilera, of Stanton, Calif., Aguilera’s widow and the mother of his two children, aged 1 and 3.

However, Border Patrol officials said that agents, including some qualified as emergency medical technicians, watched Aguilera closely after he complained that he “needed air” while being held at the patrol processing facility on Athey Way in San Ysidro. Officials acknowledge that paramedics were not called until Aguilera had collapsed on the cell floor, face down, breathing with difficulty, officials said.

“Our primary concern is with the arrestee’s health,” said Michael Nicley, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego. “We have very strict procedures that stations must follow to insure the health of people in custody,” added Nicley, who said those procedures were followed.

The Border Patrol has provided varying descriptions of two key elements of Aguilera’s detention.

When initially contacted by a reporter this week, Nicley, the patrol’s designated spokesman, said that Aguilera had been “uncooperative,” “quite agitated” and “verbally abusive” toward agents, prompting his placement in a single cell. After reviewing internal memoranda on the subject, however, Nicley on Friday described Aguilera as “emotionally upset,” but not uncooperative. Nicley could provide little elaboration on the “emotionally upset” description.

“It wasn’t anything that would prompt agents to put him in restraints,” said Nicley, who added that Aguilera was apparently never handcuffed.

There was no physical or verbal confrontation associated with Aguilera’s arrest, Nicley said.

‘Needed Air’

On a second point, Nicley said initially that Aguilera had suffered from “shortness of breath.” But after reviewing the internal documents, Nicley said on Friday that Aguilera had only complained that he “needed air.”

“It wasn’t a medical complaint,” Nicley said. “There was no sign of physical distress.”

Rodriguez, the family attorney, called the distinction important in determining whether medical help should have been summoned more quickly. He said Aguilera was in good health when arrested.

Nicley declined to release the internal documents that he cited. As is customary, the Border Patrol also declined to name the agents involved in the case, or make them available for interviews.

Aguilera’s death on Feb. 7 came 8 days before Border Patrol agents in the San Joaquin Valley community of Madera arrested Ismael Ramirez, 17, who later died of head injuries, said Alan Conroy, Border Patrol chief agent in Fresno. Last week, the East Los Angeles Immigration Project, an immigrants’ advocacy group, charged that the patrol did not act quickly enough in summoning medical help for that victim.

The death in Madera is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Professional Responsibility, a kind of internal affairs unit for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service which is the parent of the Border Patrol, INS officials have said. The patrol is cooperating in the inquiries, said Conroy, patrol chief in Fresno.

Rodriguez, the attorney for Aguilera’s widow, has called on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a similar inquiry into the San Diego case. “I think there’s a possible pattern of denial of medical treatment,” said Rodriguez, who is also the executive director of the East Los Angeles Immigration Project.

Assert No Wrongdoing

Deborah Burstion-Wade, a spokeswoman with the Department of Justice in Washington, said all such requests are considered, and cases involving alleged official misconduct are generally reviewed. While saying they would cooperate with any inquiry, Border Patrol officials in San Diego assert there is no indication of any wrongdoing in connection with the death of Aguilera. “This appears to be simply an unremarkable arrest,” Nicley said.

Nicley, the patrol’s designated spokesman, said Aguilera’s case was the only death of a person in custody at the patrol holding facility in San Ysidro in recent memory. He provided the following chronology of the arrest:

Aguilera was apprehended at about 6:30 p.m., apparently shortly after having crossed the border, in a rugged area about a half mile east of the port of entry at San Ysidro. He was picked up while hiding behind a bush, after running about 20 yards in an effort to avoid arrest.

Making the apprehension was a single agent riding a four-wheel, all-terrain vehicle. Once arrested, Aguilera was turned over to another agent, who transported him in a vehicle to the Border Patrol processing facility, where hundreds of illegal aliens are processed and held temporarily each day. The great majority are quickly returned to Mexico.

Shortly after being placed in the single cell, Aguilera made his comment about needing air, prompting agents to look into his cell every few minutes as a precaution.

At about 6:50 p.m., Nicley said, Aguilera was found face down in his cell. Nicley could not say if he was unconscious. Paramedics were immediately called, Nicley said, and agents quickly attempted to revive Aguilera through use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

“His condition appeared to improve at one point,” Nicley said. “He began to move his mouth and make gargling sounds.”

Paramedics from Hartson Medical Service were called at 6:57 p.m. and arrived on the scene at 7:01 p.m., said Clint Egleston, paramedics operations supervisor at Hartson, which handles city ambulance service. At 7:19 p.m., Egleston said, the victim was transported to Scripps Memorial Hospital in Chula Vista, where he arrived at 7:29 p.m. Aguilera died at Scripps at 7:41 p.m.

On Feb. 19, his wife, Ines Jurado Aguilera, learned that someone fitting her missing husband’s identity was in the morgue in San Diego County. The woman, mother of four children, identified her husband’s body that day. Like her late husband, she works in an Orange County gas station. Aguilera, a native of the Mexican interior state of Zacatecas, was later buried in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where his family has resettled. Despite several hundred dollars in donations received after a community appeal, the Aguilera family is still in debt for much of the $3,000 in burial-related costs, Rodriquez said.