Lawsuit Filed Against INS Over Shooting of Youth at Border

A $1-million lawsuit has been filed against U.S. immigration authorities on behalf of a Mexicali teen-ager who says he was shot by a Border Patrol agent as he tried to climb a fence to get back into Mexico.

The suit, filed Thursday in federal court in San Diego by the boy’s mother, contends that Eduardo Garcia Zamores had reached the top of the border fence near the Calexico port of entry Nov. 18 of last year when an unidentified U.S. Border Patrol agent shot him without warning.

The agent allegedly hit the boy in the stomach and a fragment from a 9-millimeter bullet remains lodged near his spinal cord, the suit says.

The suit also accuses the agent of driving away without making any effort to get medical aid for the boy after he fell to the ground unconscious.

The lawsuit alleges U.S. Border Patrol and INS officials with assault and battery and violation of the boy’s civil rights.

The name of the agent has been withheld by authorities. An investigation is continuing into the shooting, and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service is awaiting a final report, said Duke Austin, an INS spokesman in Washington.

The agent has told investigators that he fired at the boy because he was about to hurl stones at him. Mexican officials wanted to extradite the agent for trial in Mexico.

After the shooting, two Mexican consular officials were arrested and accused of trying to bribe a Calexico police employee to get the name of the agent who shot the boy.

Calexico Police Chief Leslie Ginn has said he believes the shooting was unwarranted.