Border Patrol Vehicle Kills Boy, 14

A 14-year-old boy was killed early Sunday when he was run over by a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle along the Mexican border less than a mile west of the port of entry at San Ysidro.

Luis Eduardo Hernandez Hernandez, a native of the Mexican state of Jalisco, died about 2:10 a.m. Sunday, according to Deputy Coroner Penne Hammerstead.

Michael D. Gregg, a Border Patrol supervisor in San Diego, called the incident a “regrettable and unfortunate accident.”

Roberto Martinez, a San Diego-based rights activist and prominent critic of the Border Patrol’s tactics, called it an example of the agency’s “total disregard for human life.” In the past four years, Martinez said, patrol vehicles have injured at least seven migrants in the California border area, several of whom have died. He said the agents drive in a reckless fashion.

“This has to stop,” Martinez said.

Gregg dismissed those comments as ill-informed.

“Sometimes, the agents simply cannot see these people,” said Gregg, who added that San Diego police are investigating the latest accident. “It’s very unfortunate, but things like this do happen.”

He declined to identify the agent who was driving the four-wheel-drive vehicle. The agent was experienced and accompanied by a partner, Gregg said.

The incident occurred in the early-morning darkness along the southern flank of the Tijuana River’s southern levee, a flood-control structure that has become perhaps the most-frequented illicit crossing spot along the almost 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexican border.

Almost nightly, hundreds of undocumented migrants line the porous border fence along the base of the elevated levee, waiting for a letup in the guard of agents posted in vans and assorted all-terrain vehicles.

Gregg and the coroner’s office provided the following account of Sunday’s incident:

The boy was with a group of about 100 people, including his 15-year-old brother Angel, who were crossing into the United States about three-quarters of a mile west of the legal entry point at San Ysidro. The group had gathered atop the levee, which is perhaps 20 yards inside U.S. territory at that point.

About 2 a.m, an agent descended from his post atop the levee and began to drive westward along the levee’s base, with the intention of deterring the group’s move into the United States. The vehicle, whose headlights were on, was traveling at 10 to 15 m.p.h. Gregg emphasized that the agent was not chasing anyone at the time.

Spotting the vehicle, most of the group decided to head back to the tattered fence that signals the beginning of Mexican territory. The boy, however, arrived late and stumbled into the way at a spot just a few feet north of the border.

“He literally fell into the path of the Blazer,” Gregg said. “The agent had no time to react.”

First aid was administered, he said, but the boy died at the scene.

Gregg said the boy and his brother were being smuggled to the Los Angeles area, where their father was waiting for them.

Times staff writer Anthony Millican contributed to this article.