EL PASO — 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 Monday’s shooting across a muddy riverbed on the border was fueled by a cellphone video that showed key moments in the shooting, as debate began over which country has jurisdiction.
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 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka while people on the Mexican side threw rocks at the Border Patrol agents on the scene.
What is still unclear is whether Hernandez was one of the rock-throwers and whether the agent or the victim crossed the international border.
Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez 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. Gomez Mont’s office said he demanded that the U.S. and Mexico carry out a joint review of protocols on the use of force.
