What a polarizing title for this blog post. I would rather not start an argument and just have a rational blurb on how I feel about recent events, but unfortunately, there'll always be someone who wants to pick a fight.
There was an article posted to Yahoo! News today about a U.S. Border Patrol agent who shot and killed a Mexican teenager in El Paso, TX. Long story short, the Mexicans (the kid's family & government) are upset because the agent killed him, but the Border Patrol states that the teen and others were attacking the agents with rocks while illegally in the U.S.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100609/ap_on_re_us/us_border_patrol_shooting
A couple of points:
1) The Border Patrol agent may have overreacted by discharging his firearm.
2) If a bunch of teenage boys were pelting you with rocks and you had a gun, would you not draw it to force them to stop? And if they wouldn't stop and were ignoring your demands, what's the next step? Run away? What if these kids were illegally in the U.S. (which they were)? As law enforcement, you don't run away. You have a job to do.
3) The simple fact is the kid (and others) were illegally in the United States. The kid's family is calling for "justice" to be served against the agent who shot him. However, the agent was doing his duty. Protecting the borders, his fellow agents, and himself.
4) Hindsight is 20/20. Sure, when we look at it now, the Border Patrol agent could done a couple of things differently. But going back to point #2, when you have a bunch of teenagers whipping rocks at your head, you don't really have the capacity to think through all your options, especially when you have a gun on your belt.
Conclusion: The agent did not do anything wrong. He was doing his job. The bottom line is the kid shouldn't have been illegally crossing the border and assaulting a federal officer.
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