Agent Is Accused of Recklessness in Boy’s Border Death

A lawyer representing the family of a boy killed by a U. S. Border Patrol vehicle charged Tuesday that the agent behind the wheel acted recklessly and was driving at high speed when the youth was run over early Sunday along the U.S.-Mexican border in San Diego.

“These guys should have been paying more attention and should not have been so reckless with the vehicle,” said attorney Michael D. Padilla of San Diego. The family plans to pursue a civil wrongful-death lawsuit against the border agency, Padilla said.

U.S. officials, however, have maintained that the incident was an unavoidable accident that occurred when the boy, Luis Eduardo Hernandez Hernandez, 14, stumbled in front of the vehicle, which a Border Patrol spokesman said was traveling at a safe speed between 10 and 15 m.p.h.

“The agent had no time to react,” said Michael D. Gregg, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, a uniformed enforcement arm of the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

But Padilla, citing comments by the dead boy’s brother, who he said witnessed the incident, charged that the vehicle was traveling “extremely fast,” although he declined to be more specific.

‘Cannot Place a Life in Danger’

The attorney also said that the offense committed by the youth--illegal entry into the United States--did not merit a life-threatening response.

“The nature of the crime is such that you cannot place a life in danger,” Padilla said. “You don’t kill someone for illegal entry. They may as well have pulled a gun out and shot him.”

San Diego police are investigating the incident. The inquiry should take about two weeks, said police spokesman Bill Robinson.

The incident, which occurred at 2 a.m Sunday, has prompted debate about the driving tactics used by patrol guards in the border zone, particularly in the area west of the San Ysidro port of entry along the Tijuana River levees, where the boy was killed.

Critics argue that the agents’ method of vehicular patrol at the levees make such deaths inevitable--an assertion denied by officials.

The elevated flood-control levees have become perhaps the single most concentrated illicit crossing area along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, drawing hundreds of prospective border-jumpers nightly.

They gather at a variety of spots, massing in groups atop the levees or at dozens of holes in the tattered fence that marks the international boundary. Closely observing them is an array of waiting all-terrain Border Patrol vehicles, which U.S. authorities say serves as the first line of defense in the effort to deter illegal immigration.

In the nightly game of cat and mouse, the agents frequently cruise back and forth along the unpaved southern base of the south levee, often kicking up thick clouds of dust that drift into the adjoining Tijuana neighborhood and obscure the major Mexican roadway that leads to the coast.

On recent evenings, Border Patrol vehicles have been observed traveling at speeds that appeared to exceed 30 m.p.h., often passing close to darting migrants, whose presence in the darkness is often further obscured by the swirling dust churned up by the vehicles.

‘Bound to Happen Eventually’

“This kind of death was just bound to happen eventually,” said Roberto Martinez, a longtime rights activist who is the border representative in San Diego for the American Friends Service Committee, the social action arm of the Quaker Church.

“I think an accident like this could have been foreseen,” said Marcela Merino, an official with the Mexican consulate general in San Diego.

The consulate, Merino said, has received complaints about the thick dust kicked up by the vehicles and has informed U. S. officials of the danger stemming from the reduced visibility--both to migrants running in the path of the patrol vehicles and to motorists and pedestrians using the heavily traveled adjacent Mexican highway.

Border Patrol spokesman Gregg said he had not heard about the complaints and could not comment on them.

Inevitable Byproduct

Calling the dust an inevitable byproduct of the agents’ constant patrols in the area, Gregg said: “Our agents don’t like breathing the dust any more than the aliens do.”

The agents’ vehicles occasionally exceed 15 m.p.h., Gregg said, especially when responding to emergency calls from other agents. But he added that safety is put at a premium.

“You travel at the speed you believe is safest,” said Gregg, who has extensive experience in the levee area.

The vehicular patrols are intended to serve as a “visible deterrent” to the undocumented border crossers, Gregg said.

Padilla, however, charged that the agent who was driving the Chevrolet Blazer that hit the youth “was using the vehicle to harass and intimidate these people.”

According to the Border Patrol account, the boy was hit when he stumbled in front of the vehicle early Sunday morning. He was part of a group of about 100 undocumented border crossers, Gregg said. The boy and his brother, Angel, 15, were on their way to Los Angeles to visit their father, Aurelio Hernandez Martin, a construction worker who is a legal U.S. resident, Padilla said.