Border Agent Cleared in Death of Mexican Boy

San Diego police have found no evidence of negligence in connection with the death of a 14-year-old Mexican boy run over by a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle in August, and authorities have no plans to prosecute the agent who was driving, federal and local officials said Monday.

The incident, which occurred just inside U.S. territory in San Diego early in the morning of Aug. 20, sparked considerable controversy--and a call by the Mexican government for a thorough investigation--after an attorney representing the dead boy’s family alleged that the agent had been driving recklessly.

U.S. Border Patrol officials, who characterized the incident as unfortunate but unavoidable, said immediately afterward that an initial inquiry had uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing by the driver, Agent George Brunner, 29, or his partner, Agent Oscar Lomeli, 34.

On Monday, San Diego Police Cmdr. Cal Krosch said that the official police investigation found no criminal negligence by the agents. “As far as we’re concerned it’s a closed matter,” said Krosch.

James W. Brannigan, chief assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego, said that U.S. authorities, who reviewed the police investigation because it involved federal officers, did not dispute the police findings.

“The San Diego police concluded this was accidental,” Brannigan said, “and we see no reason to take any further action at this point.”

A spokeswoman for the Mexican consul in San Diego declined to comment on the matter Monday.

Still to be litigated is a civil claim filed by the family of the dead boy, Luis Eduardo Hernandez, a native of the Mexican state of Jalisco. He and a 15-year-old brother, Angel, were en route to Los Angeles, where their father, Aurelio Hernandez, resides, when the boy was run over at 2:30 a.m. on Aug. 20. Luis Eduardo was buried 11 days later in Los Angeles.

The family attorney, Michael D. Padilla of San Diego, has maintained that the Border Patrol vehicle, a 1988 Chevrolet Blazer, was being driven at excessive speed--up to 50 miles an hour--when it struck and killed the boy just north of the border fence and south of the Tijuana River channel. The boy was one of scores gathered that evening along the channel, which has become the single most popular crossing spot for illegal migrants along the entire 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

The Border Patrol has maintained that the vehicle was traveling at no more than 15 miles an hour--within agency guidelines--when it struck and ran over the boy. The youth was running when he fell in the path of the vehicle, which was unable to stop, the patrol said.