Sergio Adrían Hernández Güereca shot and killed by Border

Patrol

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a small article regarding how the media, and by extension the public, go
through an endless cycle where they feast on a certain story (Haiti, BP oil spill, to name a few) for days or
weeks at a time, only to cast it away into oblivion the moment another big story comes along. Just
because a news item loses its omnipresence in the media circuit does not mean that that it loses its
importance. Months after the Haiti tragedy the country is still very much in ruins yet has a minimal, if not
non-existent, presence in the media. The BP oil spill is already going through this same cycle, as will no
doubt shall happen to the Pakistan flood. It is with this in mind that I wrote this article, not only to
remember, but to ensure that we don’t forget.

On June 7th 2010, a 15-year-old boy by the name of Sergio Adrían Hernández Güereca was fatally shot in
the head by an unnamed United States Border Patrol agent in the border area of El Paso, Texas only 11
days after a Mexican immigrant was killed by Border Patrol agents in Sand Diego, California.

At the time of the incident, multiple conflicting reports arose on both sides of the border fence. While
Hispanic news outlets such as Univision commented on how the young man had been hiding behind one
of the pillars of the international bridge when he had been shot, American news outlets claimed that the
US border agent had been “surrounded” by a “small angry mob” before opening fire at one of the
lynchers in self defense. Even though the United States has multiple surveillance cameras at the scene of
the crime, no videos were released to the public. However, later the next day Univision released a video
of the shooting that had been taken by an on looking spectator situated on the bridge.

As is plainly evident in the video, a mob is clearly absent from the video and Sergio’s body is found
laying next to one of the pillars of the bridge. Currently the Border Patrol is no longer investigating the
death of this casualty of the immigration debacle and has reinstated the agent in question. The U.S.
Justice Department is currently conducting a civil rights investigation into the affair.
T.J. Bonner, the president of the Border Patrol agent union said that incidents where agents are pelted
with rocks are “fairly common and capable of causing serious injury“. On this particular incident he said
“It is a deadly force encounter, one that justifies the use of deadly force“.
To which I ask, if these encounters are so common, why aren’t other border agents blasting Mexicans (or
Mexican kids for that matter) all over the border?

How was this incident different than all the other “common” encounters that made it merit deadly force?

And finally, if it’s such a common occurrence, shouldn’t agents be trained to address these types
of situations properly as to avoid both the loss of human life and straining diplomatic relations between
nations?