Man Shot at Border Sues for $15 Million

The attorney for a Mexican man allegedly shot by U. S. Border Patrol agents during a rock-throwing incident last December has filed a $15-million lawsuit against the federal government contending that the shooting was an “unreasonable, unwarranted and excessive use of force” when the officers fired their guns across the international border and struck his client in the back.

Marco E. Lopez said Monday that his client, Ignacio Mendez Pulido, was permanently paralyzed from the waist down when he was fleeing across the border into Mexico and was shot by Agents Cesar Doble and Felix Martinez.

The agents could not be reached for comment Monday. But Border Patrol officials in San Diego have said the men have been cleared of any wrongdoing in the case, and they say no conclusive evidence has been produced that the agents did in fact shoot Mendez, then a 24-year-old Tijuana mechanic.

Bullet Is Crucial

Crucial to the case is the bullet that remains lodged in Mendez’s spine. Doctors have refused to remove the bullet for medical reasons.

But Lopez said Monday that he plans to take legal depositions soon of the two agents, and he hopes he will then be able to show that the officers knew they were shooting at Mendez.

“We served the government with legal papers, and as soon as they answer, we’re going to get the depositions of these agents,” he said. “That’s when we’ll know what happened.

“And I’m sure they won’t be able to pin Ignacio as a rock thrower. Then it will be over for them as far as liability goes. We’ll have a case of them shooting at somebody who wasn’t even throwing rocks.”

Border Patrol officials said the agents were transporting some illegal aliens when suddenly their van was pelted by rocks thrown by another group of illegal aliens. Fearing for their safety and that of the illegal aliens in the van, the agents drew their guns and fired a total of three rounds.

Assumed No One Was Hit

But the agents assumed that no one was struck by the bullets when an immediate ground and air search of the border area failed to turn up any victims.

Mendez has claimed that he saw the rock-throwing incident, then ran back into Mexico to escape the fracas. It was at that point that he was hit in the back, he said, and fell to the ground just inside Mexican territory. He said he was then picked up by a motorist and taken to a Tijuana hospital.

Mendez was later treated at a San Diego hospital, and now lives in Oxnard, Calif. He has married and become a father, and is applying for legal-residency status to remain in this country.

“But physically he’s in a lot of pain,” Lopez said. “His life will never be the same.”

In a similar case, Lopez earlier represented Humberto Carrillo Estrada, a Tijuana barrio youth who was shot by U. S. Border Patrol agents in 1985 on the Mexican side after he too allegedly threw rocks across the border at officers.

Lopez filed a $3-million lawsuit in that case, but a federal court trial eventually resulted in an award of $570,000.