CBP Releases Findings Into Four Use Of Force Investigations

June 30, 2016

U.S. Customs and Border Protection released a series of findings Thursday on agent-involved shootings.

It's the first time the agency has made public the results of its internal investigations into agent-involved shootings. The agents were cleared in all four incidences, including one in Nogales, Arizona.

In the four cases, two people died and in one of those cases, Border Patrol agents fired on a man who barricaded himself in a La Joya, Texas residence and had already shot two police officers.

The Nogales incident occurred in May 2012. A group of people believed to have crossed the border illegally were trapped against a rock wall. One man in the group threw a rock at the agent. The agent described it as a softball-sized rock and told investigators he fired one round at the man then retreated to a safe distance. Nobody was hurt.

Another use of force investigation was opened after a June 2015 incident where a CBP Air and Marine agent onboard a boat shot out the engine of a boat carrying people off the coast of Solana Beach, California after it failed to stop. Officials said the runaway boat made a sharp turn, collided with the agent’s boat then capsized. Of the 20 people who fell in the water, one woman died.

The full text of CBP's report is here.