San Diego
San Diego police shot and wounded a suspected border bandit early Sunday a few hundred yards north of the U.S.-Mexican border, authorities said.
Julio Mendoza-Diaz, 19, was listed in satisfactory condition after being shot by members of the Police Department’s Border Crimes Prevention Unit, officials said.
The episode unfolded while officers were patrolling a field just south of Calle Primera and Via de San Ysidro near the banks of the Tijuana River, Sgt. Jim Long said.
Long said officers opened fire after Mendoza-Diaz, who was brandishing a handgun, approached them along with another man, Jose Martin Felix-Sanchez, 20, a Mexican national.
Mendoza-Diaz, also a Mexican citizen, was wounded in the wrist and left thigh. He was flown by Life Flight helicopter to UC San Diego Medical Center, where he was listed in satisfactory condition.
Police say the men are suspected of two robberies of undocumented workers along the border in the hours before the shooting. Mendoza-Diaz and Felix-Sanchez were booked on suspicion of robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, Long said.
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