Shootings Against Border Patrol Escalating

[Ryan Ruck]

Shootings Against Border Patrol Escalating

More than two dozen shots were fired at Border Patrol agents from across the Rio Grande on Friday and Wednesday, marking a large increase in such shootings in this sector of the border, an agency official said.

In fiscal year 2005, there were a total of six shootings, said Julio Salinas, spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley sector Border Patrol.

The shootings reported Friday and Wednesday are the sixth and seventh shootings since fiscal year began Oct. 1, officials said.

The increase in violence against agents is likely due to the effectiveness of the patrol’s enforcement, he said. The smugglers react violently to the Border Patrol’s presence, Salinas said.

“We believe it is due to operations, due to the fact that we are a threat to the narcotic or alien smugglers, and that is one of the ways they react,” he said.

On Wednesday about 7:30 p.m., about 10 shots were fired at the Border Patrol from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande near Veteran’s International Bridge at Los Tomates, said Roy Cervantes, a spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley Sector of the Border Patrol.

A Border Patrol vehicle was hit, but no one was injured, he said.

At about 7 p.m. on Friday, two Border Patrol boats carrying four agents were patrolling upriver from the Veteran’s bridge when 20 to 25 shots were fired at them from the Mexican side of the river, Salinas said.

The agents did not return fire during the shooting which was about a 1½ miles from Wednesday’s incident, and none of the four agents were hurt, he said. One of the boats was hit five times, he said.

“We don’t believe that this is a random shooting,” Salinas said. “Whoever did the shooting had to have the training or had some knowledge of how to use a firearm, because to be able to hit the boat, a moving target, five times in the cover of darkness is very difficult.”

The shooters allowed the first boat to go by with no shots fired and then fired upon the second boat, Salinas said.

Shooters on the Mexican side of the border were most likely involved in alien or drug smuggling, Salinas said.

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said his office is investigating the attack.

“We feel that perhaps these people were narcotic traffickers, and when they saw the Border Patrol, it upset their operation,” Lucio said.

The FBI is also studying the incident.

“We’re coordinating with Mexican authorities to determine who may have been the perpetrators,” said Jorge Cisneros, spokesman for the FBI in McAllen.

“The Border Patrol has had a rash of incidents here along the border,” he said. “It is obviously a big concern, since it’s escalating.”

The seven shootings involving the Border Patrol during fiscal year 2006 began are all currently still under investigation, Cisneros said.

[Brian Baldwin]

More likely Mexican military doing the shootings. That kind of training smacks of military. I wonder how long we'll allow them to keep thinking they're outsmarting us?

Brian

[Ryan Ruck]

We can only hope that it is just the Mexican military doing the shootings...

US Agents Shot At, Tension Mounts On Mexico Border

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Border Patrol agents have come under fire twice along the Rio Grande in Texas in recent days amid rising tension on the frontier with Mexico, although no one was reported wounded, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

A Border Patrol spokesman said unknown gunmen fired on agents on patrol in Brownsville, Texas, late on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if the shots came from Mexico or from within the United States.

"Shots were fired, no one was injured and the FBI have taken the case over," Jose Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas, said by telephone.

Rodriguez said the shooting was the second along the same stretch of the Rio Grande in the past week, after agents patrolling the area in a launch on Friday came under a volley of gunfire from Mexico.

"On that occasion the shooters were hiding in brush on the Mexican side of the river ... The launch was struck by five bullets, although there were no injuries," he said.

That incident came on the same day a Border Patrol agent fatally shot a teenage Mexican immigrant as he crossed the border near San Diego on December 30, triggering widespread anger in Mexico and calls for a full investigation.

Speaking to Mexican diplomats late on Wednesday, President Vicente Fox reiterated calls by the Mexican government for clarification of the killing, and pledged to "ensure that total justice is done in the case."

The 2,000-mile (3,200-km) U.S.-Mexico border has always been dangerous, although violent attacks on Border Patrol agents have risen in recent months, especially in Arizona, where around half the 1.2 million undocumented immigrants nabbed crossing from Mexico were detained last year.

The Tucson sector Border Patrol said attacks on agents have almost doubled in recent months, and included cases in which officers have been shot at, rammed with cars and pelted with rocks by immigrants and smugglers.