TV Show on Border Brings Call for Inquiry : Violence: Police say footage was contrived to portray high school youngsters as vigilantes. Others say police are engaged in a cover-up.

A national television show depicting local high school students as harassing undocumented workers along the U.S.-Mexico border has enraged Latino activists, who called Friday for a government investigation of purported racist paramilitary activities.

At the same time, the controversial program has also angered parents, police and school officials who claim footage was manipulated to portray the youths as vigilantes.

The Feb. 24 Fox Broadcasting program “The Reporters” called the San Diego-Mexico boundary a “border in violent convulsion” because of vigilante hunting parties. The show includes footage of adults discussing how they accost undocumented workers, and of a youth group that calls itself Metal Militia.

The group, many of whose members are from the Sweetwater Union High School District, say they were asked to perform for the film crew and that, on their own, they play war games that harm no one.

Arthur Hurtado, a Chula Vista resident, says the program’s portrayal of his 17-year-old son was so erroneous that he has hired a lawyer and asked program directors for a retraction.

“We are Hispanic and we don’t raise our son like that,” Hurtado said. “These kids trusted these adults who were saying, ‘Do you want to be on TV?’ And what kid wouldn’t want to be on TV?”

Though Fox Broadcasting officials were unavailable Friday, Executive Producer Gerald Stone said in a recent interview that the company stood by its story and that its reporters had not staged any of the footage.

“We are quite disturbed by any claim that we sensationalize what happens. From the footage, it’s clear that they (the teen-agers) were using procedures that they had used a number of times before,” Stone said.

The show has given rise to threats aimed at the youths as well as protests by several Latino organizations. San Diego Police Department officials entered the fray Friday with a press conference to debunk the program’s credibility.

Calling the show “well-contrived,” Cmdr. Larry Gore said police are evaluating whether to charge program cameramen with child endangerment, since the crew donned bulletproof vests and took the boys into a notoriously dangerous area. Gore said the police have received no reports of vigilantes on the border.

“To suggest that they (the youths) are harassing aliens is erroneous,” Gore said. “What you saw is fictitious.”

But Latino activists say the police are engaging in a cover-up. At a Friday press conference in Tijuana, officials with several Latino groups called for a full-scale government investigation. The groups included League of United Latin American Citizens, Harborview Community Council and Tijuana-based Centro de Informacion Estudios Migratorios.

“There’s a complete whitewash being carried out by the San Diego Police Department,” said Herman Baca, chairman of the Committee on Chicano Rights.