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Writer's pictureJenn Budd

Border Patrol Critical Incident Team & the Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez killing: Trained to obstruct justice.

Updated: Aug 15


Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez

This article is part of the Border Patrol Critical Incident Teams (CIT) series documenting the acts of the illegal and secret coverup units that still exist under their parent agency, Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) Office of Professional Responsibility. To read other articles and see the history of the coverup teams, see the USBP Critical Incident Teams category in the blog section. Please note this article only addresses the actions of the Tucson Sector Border Patrol CIT unit and not the many other aspects of the case. Remember: Border Patrol CITs were and are still not legal. They were never authorized by Congress. The Border Patrol is not legally allowed to investigate their own use of force incidents. Border Patrol CITs are coverup teams.




On October 10, 2012, 15 year old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez walked along a Mexican road that paralleled the US/Mexican border wall in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. According to his family, he was on his way to meet his older brother after he finished work. The brothers often spent time together after work playing video games and eating hot dogs before returning to their home just a few blocks away. This evening ended with young Jose Antonio shot 10 times in both his back and the back of his head by Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Swartz. Jose Antonio's family, unable to find him, only discovered his killing the following day when the local news aired a story about an unknown teenager being shot by Border Patrol.


With Jose Antonio being in Mexico while Agent Swartz stood on the US side shooting, the question of if the US Constitution extended into Mexico was raised by the US government in the context of a civil lawsuit brought by the Elena Rodriguez families. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the family had no legal standing to file a civil lawsuit against the Border Patrol or Agent Swartz because the US Constitution does not apply in foreign countries, and the document's civil rights guarantees did not travel with the bullet into Mexico. According to the Supreme Court's logic, this meant that Border Patrol agents could stand on US soil and shoot into Mexico injuring or killing anyone without any repercussions or fear of accountability from the US judicial system.


The criminal case against Agent Swartz went forward in federal court, ending with the juries in two separate criminal trials unable to reach a unanimous decision on guilt. The US government decided to not seek a third trial because both juries stated that the evidence was incredibly flawed. In both criminal cases, jurors specifically cited the poor quality of the Border Patrol CIT's identification, collection and analysis of evidence as critical factors in why they could not convict Agent Swartz. This was not an error or an anomaly. This was how the system was designed, secretly run for over 30 years, and is still used by the Border Patrol and CBP today.


As in all other Border Patrol use of force cases that result in serious injury or death, the appropriate and legal response by agents involved in such incidents as required by law and policy is to first assist injured persons whether they are agents or anyone else. Once injured people are being tended to or are removed from the scene, agents are required to notify supervisors, tape off the area in concern, avoid entering the crime scene area, identify and secure witnesses ensuring no one speaks to each other about the incident until outside investigators arrive, and to only allow agencies with investigative authority to investigate.


The following is what happens when the federal government allows the Border Patrol to run secret, unauthorized, and illegal coverup teams to act as evidence collection teams.



Setting the narrative:


Like all other Border Patrol use of force cases I have studied, the agent using force must justify their actions by showing that they perceived a threat to either their life or the lives of others. These carefully constructed narratives begin in Border Patrol/CBP Serious Incident Reports and Use of Force Reports. Both are used to convey facts as well as intentional misinformation and often outright lies. Only the facts that support the agencies' narrative that the shooting was justified will be included in these reports. Most often, Border Patrol managers simply omit the important facts that can tell a different story. Both reports are sent to Washington D.C. Border Patrol and CBP headquarters with updates constantly being made months, sometimes years after the incident.






According to the Border Patrol's Serious Incident Report, at approximately 11:27 p.m. MST the camera operator notified agents on the ground that two people had jumped the border wall and were carrying backpacks north that are often used to smuggle marijuana. The report also stated that this area is about a quarter of a mile west of the De Concini Port of Entry in Nogales, Arizona which is where BPA Swartz was actually assigned to work.








The Serious Incident Report for this case shown above falsely stated that Nogales PD Officer John Zuniga's K-9 was hit by a rock. This was later proven in court and by the handler's own testimony to be not true as shown on the right. The report also assumed that the person killed, Jose Antonio, threw rocks without any evidence other than the word of Agent Swartz who was not even present when the incident started. Border Patrol agents speaking to the press repeated these statements so often that the media routinely reported that Jose Antonio was throwing rocks although at least three witnesses who were never interviewed by the CIT investigators stated he was simply walking and had nothing to do with those who were throwing rocks.



Two days after the killing, Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star wrote the first article about the incident stating that after the two marijuana smugglers dropped off their loads on the US side and returned to Mexico, Border Patrol agents and Nogales PD officers on the US side had to run for cover from rocks being thrown at them.(1) Steller wrote this because this is what Border Patrol and CBP reported to him, but video proved many years later in court that none of the agents "ran" or even considered themselves to be in danger. In this first article written about the case, the Border Patrol again controlled the narrative. While first stating the obligatory phrase that they did not want to comment on the case for fear of influencing it, the agency spokesperson went on to say that the shooting was the result of agents being attacked by rocks, and that the agents reportedly ordered those in Mexico to stop throwing rocks. When their orders were ignored, an agent shot into Mexico. The spokesperson then stated that the investigation was being done by independent investigators of the FBI and the Sonora, Mexico State Police. There was no mention that the illegal CIT unit handled the evidence identification and collection for the FBI.


This framing of investigations as impartial and independent is important and is seen in nearly all cases involving the Border Patrol. Yet nothing could have been further from the truth, and the Border Patrol knew this as they were the ones controlling the investigation from the start by acting as evidence technicians. In investigations like these, whether or not a case goes to court or succeeds in prosecution depends heavily on whether the evidence was secured by a legal forensics team, if the team identified every piece of evidence, how that evidence was collected and stored, and if the chain of custody was complete. The Border Patrol CIT's lack of legitimacy and professional training caused every piece of evidence they touched to be compromised. If the evidence was not identified properly or missed, if it was collected poorly and contaminated, or the chain of custody was not maintained, then prosecutors, the courts, and jurors could not use that evidence in determining guilt.


On the following day and every news article thereafter, Border Patrol officials repeated that they did not want to talk about the case for fear of influencing the investigation and potential jurors, yet each and every time, they turned right around and talked openly about the case to the media spreading false information about the victim. The second article in the Arizona Daily Star quoted agents as saying Jose Antonio was "suspected" of throwing rocks.


The Border Patrol continued to influence the case among the press and public by using the agency's union, the National Border Patrol Council. Five days after Jose Antonio was killed, Border Patrol agent and union representative Art del Cueto was quoted as saying to the media in regard to this case, "Rocks can kill you."(2) There has never been an incident where a Border Patrol agent was killed by a rock; not in over a hundred years. As the criminal trial dragged on year after year, the union's vice president, Shawn Moran, went on camera in September of 2015 and stated he was concerned the trial was a "political prosecution."(3) In October of 2015, Art del Cueto stood on the steps of the courthouse and repeated the claims of "political prosecution."(4)


The setting of the narrative with the media by the Border Patrol and its union while simultaneously claiming they do not want to influence or prejudice cases is consistently seen in nearly every single case across various CIT teams in differing sectors and should be considered procedure and policy within the agency.



Border Patrol Critical Incident Team response:



Picture of Tucson Sector Border Patrol Critical Incident Team's challenge coin.
Tucson Sector Border Patrol Critical Incident Team's challenge coin.


According to the documents and court cases cited in this piece, the Tucson Sector CIT members associated with this case were: Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Katie Siemer, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Javier Dominguez, and Border Patrol Agent Gerardo Carranza. Additionally, Tucson Sector maintained an Evidence Collection Team (ECT) which is another CIT that is not authorized by law in the US Border Patrol. During the criminal trials, Agent Moore testified that he was responsible for training the CIT members in the Tucson Sector on forensics investigations. Agent Moore's authority and training was not addressed in the investigation, nor the trial. All of the Border Patrol CIT's actions were accepted by Arizona District Federal Judge Raner C. Collins, the US Attorney's Office and the jurors in both criminal trials as fact and as legal without question.


According to the Border Patrol's Serious Incident Report:


  • 11:27 p.m. - the shooting occurred.

  • 11:33 p.m. - Sonoran State Police were notified by Border Patrol, and they responded to the area where Jose's body was located.

  • 11:36 p.m. - Command Post is set up on the road where the agent shot from to prevent people from entering the crime scene.

  • 11:37 p.m. - Border Patrol supervisor speaks with Sonoran State Police and confirms one person was killed on the Mexican side.

  • 11:39 p.m. - Cruz Rojas arrived at the scene on the Mexican side.

  • 11:45 p.m. - CIT is notified and stated they would notify CBP-IA.

  • 1:00 a.m. - CIT arrived on scene.




While agents on the scene waited for the CIT unit to show, senior Border Patrol Agent Roy Pierce took it upon himself to wrap the scene on the US side with yellow caution tape, identified and marked bullet casings, and took pictures of the scene where Jose Antonio's body laid on the Mexican side. In courtroom testimony, Agent Pierce stated that he had been trained in evidence preservation. Although he did not specifically mention the CIT, this is the only unit that trained agents in such tactics. CITs often took field agents for limited details to train them in evidence and scene preservation methods that were again not legally authorized or approved by accredited forensics programs. While Agent Pierce's actions that evening were not illegal, and although he bragged on the stand about having evidence preservation training and skills, he still failed to preserve the scene when he, the expertly trained crime scene investigator, drove through the scene and ran over evidence.








Video later revealed that Agent Pierce, as well as several other agents, drove through the crime scene. Agents were also recorded running through the area where shell casings and the rocks alleged to have been thrown were located.







With the shooting occurring at 11:27 p.m. and the CIT arriving on scene at 1:00 a.m., those involved with the shooting had control of the scene and evidence for over ninety minutes. Upon taking the stand, Border Patrol CIT Agent Gerardo Carranza stated that the CIT "investigated and collected forensic data in regards to shootings, use of force incidents, collisions, things like that. Anything the Border Patrol deemed to be critical and there might be some media attention, or somebody was hurt, injured or killed." This statement demostrates the CIT's reach and how often they were used within Tucson Sector. In regard to his training, he testified that he had taken one class in Florida, but that most of his training was "on the job." This was the only vetting of the CIT authorities done in this trial.





CIT Agent Carranza testified that when he and CIT Agent Siemer arrived at the scene, they spoke with the incident supervisor, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Leo Cruz-Mendez. Supervisor Cruz-Mendez had traded guns with Agent Swartz immediately after the shooting and then gave the gun used to kill Jose Antonio to CIT Agent Carranza. Whatever evidence was on the gun during the shooting had been contaminated by Supervisor Cruz-Mendez handling the gun. CIT Agent Carranza further stated that the rocks thrown at the agents were identified by the agents involved in incident and were gathered and place together by those involved further contaminating the evidence. This means the CIT unit allowed those involved in the shooting to dictate what was evidence and what was not. This is inconsistent with all professional evidence collection techniques.




To document the scene on the US side, CIT agents used a Total Station forensics program that was purchased through the Department of Homeland Security for the CIT. Total Station is a 2D and 3D laser imaging system that can document evidence and its location more accurately if it is used correctly. The data obtained that evening of the scene was taken back to the Border Patrol CIT office in Tucson where CIT Agent Carranza then made a diagram. It was then that they realized they had missed some of the shell casings because they failed to use the Total Station correctly. CIT agent Carranza then admitted to estimating the location of the missing evidence and changing the diagram based off still pictures.









On cross examination by Border Patrol's union attorneys, CIT Agent Carranza admitted that his only training on the Total System was "on the job training" by a senior agent who also did not have the legal authority to conduct investigations. In courtroom testimony, CIT agent Carranza admitted there was no class provided, no amount of time needed to become efficient, or any official test to prove they were proficient in operating Total Station.






He further admitted on cross examination that he and CIT Agent Siemer assumed that the rocks and shells they documented on the scene had not been moved even though he could not prove that the agents had not moved any of the evidence during the ninety minutes it took for him to arrive on the scene. CIT Agent Carranza was eventually forced to admit during his testimony that most of the evidence had been contaminated by the agents involved in the shooting only after union attorneys showed the video of trucks and agents driving through the crime scene in court and in front of the jurors.







FBI response:


CBP and Border Patrol repeatedly told the press that the killing of Jose Antonio was being investigated by the FBI and the Sonoran State Police. While the Tucson FBI has its own Evidence Response Teams trained in the most advanced and current forensics techniques and applications, while their training is monitored and every technician must pass rigorous standards to be on the team, while the FBI evidence and forensic teams follow the international guidelines and standards and have their labs and forensics tools calibrated and evaluated yearly by certified inspectors...the same cannot be said of the Border Patrol CITs.


FBI Special Agent Michelle Terwilliger stated in courtroom testimony that the FBI always used the CITs when Border Patrol was involved. Instead of using independent FBI agents who were not coworkers of the Border Patrol agents involved in the shootings, the FBI solely used the CITs who were coworkers of those involved, who had no legal authority to exist, and had received seriously dubious evidence collection training.




As the testimony showed, FBI Agent Terwilliger believed that she was in charge of the Border Patrol CITs even though she was not a part of the Border Patrol command and had no legal authority over them. After being notified of the incident, Agent Terwilliger claimed she spoke with the CIT agents on the phone and told them they could start marking evidence and using the Total Station imaging device before she arrived. The FBI used the corrupted evidence of the CITs to write their reports for decades. These consistent "failures" are actually policies and protocols of the CITs and did not appear to ever be a concern for the FBI nor their investigators.




FBI Agent Terwilliger arrived on scene nearly two and half hours after the shooting and fifty minutes behind the CIT unit who was also coming from Tucson. Her testimony was that the CIT simply helped her identify evidence, but that she was the one in charge of the investigation and the scene. She claimed she was the one who personally picked up all the evidence and secured it, but upon further questioning she admitted that Border Patrol CIT took custody of the gun on the scene, that CIT did the imaging, and that CIT had the wrappings from the drug bundles that were found.






During cross examination, FBI Agent Terwilliger was forced to admit that she was not there for most of the investigation. She had zero oversight into what the illegal CITs were doing; it was the CITs who identified and marked what was evidence and what was not. FBI Agent Terwilliger simply showed up at the end and collected the evidence that those involved in the shooting had claimed was evidence and that their coworkers acting as CIT agents had marked.






As shown above, FBI Agent Terwilliger stated that she requested the Border Patrol CIT agents obtain the videos from the cameras along the wall on the evening of the shooting. A week later on the 18th, a Border Patrol spokesperson told a reporter that, “...video cameras on the border fence were operational during the event.” This marks the first time Border Patrol officials admitted the cameras were working when Jose Antonio was killed.(5)


The next mention of videos would not come for two years later as the investigation continued. In 2014, reporter Ben Ortega asked CBP what happened to the videos. CBP refused to respond.(6) Nearly 3 years after Jose Antonio's killing, the family again demanded then Commissioner of CBP, Gil Kerlikowski, release the videos. Kerlikowski refused stating the investigation was still ongoing.(7) In November of 2015, CBP and Border Patrol admitted there were two videos of the shooting captured on their cameras. Judge Collins placed protective orders on both videos obtained by the CIT forever keeping the videos out of the press and banned from public viewing.(8)


In an interview dated January 6, 2016, former CBP Internal Affairs Commissioner James Tomsheck stated that he had seen the videos of Jose Antonio's killing. According to former Commissioner Tomsheck, the videos showed the two men with the bags of weed as they crossed the fence and went north. The two Nogales PD officers simply watched the smugglers dump the bags and cross back into Mexico. The former Commissioner stated the cops did not appear concerned for their safety. Then he stated Agent Swartz came into view arriving from a quarter of a mile away, got out of his car, and he “walks to the border fence” and started firing into Mexico. Former Commissioner Tomsheck visited the site and agreed with many other experts that even if Jose Antonio had thrown rocks, he did not present any danger because of the thirty to forty foot drop between the US and Mexican side and because the bollard fence gaps were only three inches wide.(9)


It wasn't until five years after the shooting in March of 2017 that the family, the court and the public were told that the Border Patrol had "either lost or destroyed the videos." In Agent Swartz' attorneys' filings, the Border Patrol CIT agents claimed the videos were “too compressed to clearly see the incident." According to the article, the FBI never bothered to try and obtain the original videos until 2015, three years after the killing. As the case progressed, the only videos used were the compressed copies which greatly reduced visibility for the jurors.(10)


I cannot stress this enough, video failures are a feature in CIT cases and not an anomaly. Whenever there is video, Border Patrol will leave it in the machine so that it is automatically re-written over as they did in the Anastasio Hernandez Rojas killing, or they will make copies that are compressed thus losing enormous amounts of data and they then destroy the originals. Compressed copies reduce quality and pixels making the picture grainy and difficult to see. These types of "accidents" occurred in the 1990s when I was an agent. This is CIT training, procedure, and policy.


Sonoran State Police response:


Sonoran State Police were notified of the killing at 11:32 p.m. according to the Border Patrol's Serious Incident Report and arrived on scene at 11:35 p.m. According to video and eyewitness testimony, the area around Jose Antonio was not secured, many people were roaming around the scene, possibly even touching the child's body and moving it. Photos of the autopsy were lost as well as the clothing Jose Antonio was wearing that night.


Union attorneys rightly jumped on this poor performance just as they did with the poor Border Patrol CIT performance. However, the attorneys on both sides failed to mention that the Sonoran State Police Evidence Collection Team was trained by the Tucson Sector CIT managers. This is clearly shown in former Border Patrol Assistant Chief John Buscaglia's Linked-In profile. (Please see my article on how Buscaglia created many of the southern border CITs.)






The US Border Patrol and its various renditions of CITs do not worry about what Mexican officials will find because they were trained by Border Patrol agents in evidence collection techniques that favor the agency.


Expert forensic testimony:


Unlike the Border Patrol CIT agents who testified, expert independent forensic analyst Gary Rini was required by the court to go through his bonafides and provide evidence of those skills. Rini had a bachelors in psychology and a masters in forensic sciences from George Washington University. All his training was certified and proven to the court, the attorneys, and the jurors. Rini was even involved in helping write the international forensic standards.


Rini found that the Border Patrol CIT and FBI agent Terwilliger:


  • failed to look under cars for rocks or shell casings

  • failed to stop people and cars from destroying evidence

  • did not do any DNA testing on the rocks or marijuana bales and packaging

  • failed to interview those operating the cameras until much later resulting in faded memories

  • failed to secure the original videos

  • failed to test for gunshot residue on the fence that would have enabled them to determine exactly where Agent Swartz was standing when he fired to help determine bullet trajectories and distance

  • failed to operate the Total Station system correctly..."screwed it up"

  • failed to document and interview witnesses other than Border Patrol agents



Expert forensic analyst Gary Rini's testimony.


CIT obstructed justice:


This case was considered by all to be complex; the agent and the gun on the US side and Jose Antonio's body on the Mexican side meant that the investigation would be divided up between

multiple agencies. On the US side, this meant that Nogales PD, Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department, CBP Internal Affairs, CBP Office of Professional Responsibility, Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, and the FBI were all to be called by Tucson Sector Border Patrol supervisors according to the 2010 Use of Force Handbook. Yet, no Arizona local or state law enforcement agencies with jurisdiction were ever called to investigate.


Even Agent Swartz' attorneys Jaime Calle and Sean Chapman, both long time Border Patrol union defense attorneys who used illegal CIT reports to defend their clients for decades, commented to the press on how confusing the investigative process was: "I've been doing this for more than a decade, and it's still confusing to me. That's how the federal government operates. It's slow. It's opaque, and they (the investigations) are always difficult."(11)


Agent Swartz' defense attorneys knew better than anyone else how to use the "failures" of the illegal Border Patrol's CITs because they had been doing it for years. Case after case in the Tucson sector shows these same union attorneys pointing to the same "failures" of the CITs again and again, and using those same "failures" over and over in different cases to get their clients acquitted. These consistent "failures" were how the agents were trained; meaning the "failures" were intentional and procedural. These Border Patrol CIT procedures and policies were then used by the union attorneys to install doubt in jurors' minds which was all that was needed to get their client acquitted or to create a hung jury. Unlike actual forensic experts brought by the prosecution and defense to testify before the court, Border Patrol CIT agents were never asked to submit their qualifications and certifications as evidence technicians or forensics experts to the court.


Union attorney Jaime Calle added that although the cases were complex, they were fully investigated because so many agencies were involved. This statement is an assumption not based in fact. The multiple agency approach is used by the Border Patrol to cause confusion once the case is in court. Federal, state, local and Mexican agencies all have differing protocols and policies regarding evidence identification and collection. Even though the Border Patrol and the FBI are both federal agencies, the CIT members did not have the same training or certifications as FBI evidence teams. This is because the FBI evidence teams were and are legally authorized teams set up with oversight and professional forensic evaluations by certified national forensics organizations. The Border Patrol CITs obtained some of their training at the academy, instructed by other Border Patrol agents who did not have the authority or expertise to do so and a variety of other private means. To date, CIT training has never been evaluated by professional forensic experts.


By the time the criminal trial started in March of 2018, the national media was reporting the lies spread by the Border Patrol union and spokespersons that Jose Antonio was a member of a drug cartel.(12) For the record, the child had no prior encounters with Mexican nor American officials. Even the US prosecutors who were supposedly representing the victim stated that he was likely throwing rocks although no evidence was ever given to prove this accusation.(13) Yet, witness Marco Gonzalez stated in 2012 to the media that no investigators interviewed him.(14) Witness Isidro Alvarez was walking just twenty feet behind Jose Antonio when he was killed and told the media several times that the child was not involved with the rock throwing.(15) Still, the Border Patrol Serious Incident Report stated the only witnesses were the four Border Patrol agents on scene.


Jurors from the criminal trials stated the Border Patrol CIT unit evidence identification and collection was so poor that they were forced into a hung verdict on the first trial(16) and an acquittal in the second trial. US prosecutors admitted that because the CITs had not recorded the scene correctly with the Total Station system, they were forced make assumptions about where Agent Swartz was standing and what he was likely seeing when he decided to shoot. One juror stated that the problems with evidence collection and integrity from the Mexican and the Border Patrol CIT unit caused her to vote not guilty. When CIT claimed the Nogales PD K-9 was hit with a rock, and the Nogales PD K-9 handler took the stand to state that was not true. The jurors did not who to believe.(17)



In the end, neither the agent nor the agency were held criminally accountable for Jose Antonio's untimely death. CBP and the US Border Patrol were not required to pay a single penny to the Elena Rodriguez families as they found Agents Swartz could not have violated Jose Antonio's civil rights because the Constitution has no authority in foreign countries. The illegal and secret CIT unit did its job and obstructed justice by contaminating everything it touched. The units continue on today under CBP's Office of Professional Responsibility investigations which happens to be led by former Border Patrol agent Daniel Altman.



Notes:


  1. Steller, Tim. "Nogales crowd pelted officers with rocks after drug drop, agency says." Arizona Daily Star, October 12, 2012.

  2. Steeler, Tim. "Anger, questions in border shooting." Arizona Daily Star, October 17, 2012. A1, A4.

  3. O'Dell, Rob. "Experts: Pressure led to Border Patrol murder charges." Arizona Republic, 9/27/2015. A14, A15.

  4. O'Dell, Rob & Gonzalez, Daniel. "Border Agent pleas not guilty in Mexican teen's 2012 death." Arizona Republic, 10/10/2015. A3, A18.

  5. Ortega, Ben. "BP scrutinized over teen’s shooting death." Arizona Republic, October 18, 2012. A1, A4.

  6. Ortega, Ben. "Mother's wrongful death suit faces obstacles." Arizona Republic, July 30, 2014. A3, A10.

  7. Ortega, Ben. "CBP: No action against agents." Arizona Republic, June 8, 2015. A1, A14.

  8. O'Dell, Rob. "Agent’s trial in death of Mexican boy delayed as 2 videos acknowledged." Arizona Republic, November 8, 2015. A20.

  9. Treviso, Perla. "Murder trial of BPA rescheduled to March." Arizona Daily Star, January 6, 2016. A7.

  10. O'Dell, Rob. "Video gone of teen's killing by agent." Arizona Republic, March 20, 2017. A5.

  11. Steller, Tim. "Border Patrol faces little accountability." Arizona Daily Star, December 9, 2012. A1, A18, A19.

  12. Carranza, Rafael. "Trial under way for border agent charged in Mexican teen's death." USA Today Network, March 22, 2018. A3, A13.

  13. Fischer, Howard. "Agent shot Nogales boy throwing rocks." Arizona Daily Star, June 30, 2017. A2, A10.

  14. Steller, Tim. "Border Patrol faces little accountability." Arizona Daily Star, December 9, 2012. A1, A18, A19.

  15. Trevino, Joseph. "A year later, family still seeks answers to fatal shooting in Nogales." Arizona Daily Star, December 3, 2013. A2, A8.

  16. Treviso, Perla. "BP agent Swartz to be tried again in cross-border shooting death." Arizona Daily Star, May 12, 2018. A1, A3.

  17. Treviso, Perla. "Jurors of different minds in border shooting trial." Arizona Daily Star, April 29, 2018. A1, A6.



Sources:


  • US Border Patrol Serious Incident Report - 13TCANGL-101112000012(4)

  • US Border Patrol Assault on Officer Report - NGL 13-10000244

  • CBP Use of Force Report: UFB20121010004

  • FBI case #: B-PX-2527946 & 82A-PX-2549011

  • Arizona District Court cases: 15cr01723-RCC-DTF & 14-cv-02251-RCC

  • CBP 2010 Use of Force Handbook

  • News articles obtained via the internet or Newspapers.com.




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