Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Apparently, the 5th Amendment Doesn't Apply to BP Shootings

TUCSON, Ariz. — A Border Patrol agent indicted for the fatal shooting of a Mexican teen through the gaps of a border fence threw up after the shooting and said people were throwing rocks and struck a police dog.

Documents filed by prosecutors last week also reveal that Border Patrol Supervisor Leo Cruz-Mendez said he was surprised to see agent Lonnie Swartz at the fence on the night of the shooting in 2012. Swartz had been assigned to work at a nearby port of entry.

A federal judge has scheduled an August hearing to determine whether statements made by a Border Patrol agent can be used in his trial for the fatal 2012 cross-border shooting of a Mexican teenager.

A grand jury last fall indicted Swartz on a murder charge for shooting through gaps in the fence in Nogales and killing 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodríguez on Oct. 10, 2012. For the first time, court documents have made public the details of what occurred after Elena Rodríguez was shot.

Cruz-Mendez told the grand jury that he told Swartz everything was OK after the shooting, but the agent began to vomit.

According to the documents, Swartz said people were throwing rocks from the other side of the fence and hit a police dog.

"I shot and there's someone dead in Mexico," he continued, and produced and empty ammunition magazine from his pocket, according to court records.

An autopsy conducted in Sonora, Mexico, showed that Elena Rodríguez was hit 10 times. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has refused to release surveillance camera footage of the incident.

It's not unusual for Border Patrol agents to move from where they are assigned in response to an incident, according to Shawn Moran, spokesman for the national Border Patrol union. The Nogales port of entry is only blocks from where Elena Rodríguez was killed.

U.S. District Court Judge Raner C. Collins has scheduled an Aug. 23 hearing on the admissibility of Swartz's initial statements and his responses to further questions from Cruz-Mendez. Prosecutors have argued that they should be admissible but Swartz's lawyers say they should be suppressed.

Swartz's attorneys say the agent was compelled to answer them to avoid disciplinary sanctions, including the possibility of being fired.

The trial has been delayed for the fourth time at the request of Swartz's lawyer Sean Chapman. It is now scheduled to start in February, nearly 4 ½ years after the shooting.

Elena Rodríguez's family declined to comment through their lawyer after the case's most recent hearing.

The 5th does not exclude such statements made voluntarily and contemporaneously with an incident.

UNLESS, there is some degree of custody or a mandatory obligation to inform - which might be the exception here. It'll be a very interesting procedural and evidentiary case with appeals certain regardless of the outcome. For lawyers, these are the cases that can change the way things are done for years to come, based upon the nuanced rules and court rulings on them.

Shot one gal guy 10 times?

Musta loved that dog.

I got no problem with shooting back when stuff like this happens.

Bet it will stop if they don't make much of this.

Yep i don't care at all.

Jose Elena Rotriguez

Oh, don't get me wrong. Trying to stone BP agents is perfectly valid grounds to open fire imho.

But it usually takes some serious effort to hit one person 10 times.

Time was, BP would get into firefights along the Rio Grande and other border points alla time. Dead Mescans in such dust-ups weren't news.

Beat me to this one, Ben !

I can't BEGIN to express how absolutely pitiful it is to see the "best of the best" young agents throwing in the towel because of this kinda' totally unacceptable horsechit.

Wondering how many posting here are aware of the paperwork that is required of a boots on the ground agent now if he as much as lays his hands on a "migrant" after chasing him through brush and cholla for a mile or two ?

Wondering how many posting here are aware that said agent is required to complete this paperwork PRIOR to going home after a long shift, and that he will not be PAID for the time this takes.

Wondering how many posting here are aware that an agent who
DOES run fleeing transgressors to ground and tackle them starts to attract attention from higher up his chain of "command"(I'll gotdam well not call it leadership,) said attention quickly taking file notes indicating that he's "very aggressive", and other beurocrapic speak.

Wondering how many posting here are aware that the discahrge of one lousy 9mm round, as a warning shot / attention getter, by an agent about to be SWARMED, generates a damn FILE CABINET's worth of paperwork, with multiple "agencies" being involved in investigating. This incident WILL be a black mark on the young agent's record.

I could go on.

Chores await.

later,

GTC

The autopsy results for this fiasco are MUDDY,and questionable in the EXTREME. Have been from the get go, as is the chain of custody on the stiff.

No way a Mex. embalmer in Nogales would take a little mordida to poke a series of THROUGH HOLES in the poor, harmless, friendly and lovable deceased lad's extremities.
Nope,no way, Jose',.....Nogales Sonora is an icon of totally ethical and upright behavior,...not one little HINT of corruption there, ....nope.

GTC

No telling if the dead Mex wasn't already conveniently predeceased via some local cartelistas, either.

That, or simply counting wounds to arms and body caused by 1 bullet as 2 gunshot wounds - or even 4.

And I'm sure the DOJ will issue 10 visas to other stone throwers so they can come testify against the agent as witnesses.

Yeah, it's screwed up. But 10 and a totally empty mag is a bad sign.

A LOT of the "rockers" use shepherd's slings, and have been practicing with em' since they were pups.

SHOOT BACK ?

....no problemo here in my camp,

CLOSE ENOUGH ?

use a frag.

GTC

The EPA lost a class action overtime pay lawsuit last year. And another decision narrowed who qualified for the exceptions to overtime pay as salaried managers.

Maybe the BP union should take a hard look at this unpaid time and acquire some $$$ for their agents?

Naive idea in the extreme,....

Volumes have been posted right here, and on a lot of other conservative sites about just how ticked off the BP union folks are,...PARTICULARLY the Tucson sector.

GTC

America was attacked and they deserved what they got.

These "rocking" incidents have been pretty much identified as having been damned successful diversionary tactics,...get everybody looking one direction, run a load across in the other.

Get a bunch of Guats and Salvadorans mixed up with some local "kids" and ply them with booze, drugs, puzzy, and Guevera grade rhetoric,....they WILL go soak up pepper spray and worse,...
At the time of this incident there was a small HERD of em' living in the sewers underneath Nogy.

....."nice" young folks.

GTC

What does this have to do with the 5th Amendment?





Dave

The officer needs to be sent to range training, and learn to make all shots count.

Jeez man, you are WAY out of the loop.

SELDOM, if ever do BP agents train with live ammo
That's SCARY, and DANGEROUS, for Pete's sake. ,...there are now 3D "Virtual Ranges" for that.Kinda' like a trip to the movies,...
... a grotesque, b-grade Sci-Fi Movie.

Some of you reading this will remember shooting with me on our old BP range here in Cochise County. You'll remember the caverns dug in the berms by live fire, testimony to the volume once considered MINIMAL, to retain proficiency.That's where I met Terry( he was one of their senior RSO / Trainer types,) and shot a little range safety breeze with him,...fine fella' to share a range with.

That facility doesn't host 1/10th of the BP volume that it once did, last I checked.

"But 10 and a totally empty mag is a bad sign"
yeah means he missed with half a mag.