EL PASO, Texas — Mexico on Thursday condemned the shooting of a 15-year-old boy by a U.S. Border Patrol agent through diplomatic correspondence and an angry phone call to the Homeland Security secretary. Some Mexican politicians called for the agent's extradition to face Mexican justice.
Anger over the Monday night shooting across the muddy Rio Grande on the border was fueled by a cellphone video of the shooting, as debate began over which country has jurisdiction in the case.
A still-unidentified Border Patrol agent trying to arrest illegal immigrants running into the United States fired his weapon from the U.S. side into Mexico, killing Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka, 15, while people on the Mexican side threw rocks at border agents.
What is still unclear is whether Hernandez was one of the rock-throwers and whether the agent or the victim crossed the border. Mexican federal police quickly chased Border Patrol agents out of the riverbed with rifles trained on them while a crowd on the Mexican side taunted the U.S. officials and threw rocks and firecrackers.
"We are worried by this surge of violence against Mexicans, which comes along with a surge of other anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican occurrences in the United States," Mexican President Felipe Calderón said in a new statement, apparently referring to Arizona's new immigration law, which the Mexican leader previously has condemned.
The grainy cellphone video, available on Univision.com, shows an unedited glimpse of the violence. A Border Patrol agent on a bicycle arrives in the riverbed as several men run back to Mexico. He detains one on the U.S. side. Once the agent has the suspect on the ground, he fires three audible shots toward Mexico. The camera then shows what appears to be a body under a railroad bridge.
Interior Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont phoned U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, to protest the killing of Hernandez and a man on the California-Mexico border two weeks ago. Gómez Mont's office said he demanded that the U.S. and Mexico carry out a joint review of protocols on the use of force by border officers.
Border Patrol agents are allowed to use lethal force against rock-throwers.
Calderón's government has come under increasing criticism at home for what some Mexicans believe is a lukewarm reaction to the two deaths. Opposition politicians and some commentators criticized him for leaving Thursday to watch the World Cup in South Africa.
Jesús Ortega, president of the opposition Democratic Revolution Party, said the agent who shot Hernandez should be extradited to Mexico. "When a delinquent commits a crime in Mexico that affects a U.S. citizen, extradition is immediately requested and the Mexican government immediately grants it," Ortega said.
Calderón gave no indication his government would seek extradition. Instead, he called for a thorough U.S. investigation.
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