Execution on the border

On March 21, Carlos La Madrid, age 19, was shot to death by the Border Patrol as he climbed the fence separating his home town of Douglas, Arizona, from Agua Prieta, Sonora. He was going south, not trying to come into the U.S.

Carlos was a U.S. citizen. He was hit three times by Border Patrol bullets. Their response to his death was the familiar excuse: Carlos -- or somebody -- was throwing rocks. Remember, he was climbing a ladder.

Jennifer Allen, executive director of the human rights group Border Action Network, explains: “We will never know exactly what happened on March 21st because Carlos will never have his day in court. What we do know is that Border Patrol agents took the law into their own hands, acted as judge, jury and executioner and shot to kill a man who should have still been presumed to be innocent."

I do not see any way that this shooting can be called anything else but an execution.

Is all the screaming on Capitol Hill and in the state legislatures putting droves of Border Patrol agents on the border without sufficient training? The screamers say the border is unprotected. But the familiar white-and-green patrol vehicles are everywhere. Driving in these borderlands -- on both dirt and paved roads -- I see them coming one after the other, sometimes two at a time. Last Friday, when I drove past the Sonoita station late in the afternoon, there were so many Border Patrol vehicles neatly lined up in their lot that it looked like a major car dealership.

It is bad enough here in Arizona with anybody now allowed to carry a concealed weapon without training or license. If insufficiently trained law officers are being rushed to the border in the present climate of racist fear-mongering, we have reached the bottom of the pit.