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 News from Around the Americas | August 2007 
Witness Claims Wrong Person Shot at Border, Lawyer Says
 Alicia A. Caldwell - Associated Press
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| | This photo from Reuters shows police officers standing next to the body of a man who was killed Aug. 8 in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez. |
El Paso, Texas — A Mexican woman who witnessed a fatal border shooting claims the U.S. Border Patrol shot the wrong man, a lawyer in the case said Friday.
Laura Contreras Escarcega told her lawyer that she was kneeling on the ground as ordered by a Border Patrol agent when one of the men she was traveling with picked up a rock. Then she said she saw a Border Patrol agent shoot another man, the group's suspected smuggler, her immigration lawyer Maricela Garcia said.
The Border Patrol on Friday denied the wrong man was shot.
Jose Alejandro Ortiz Castillo, a 23-year-old man who had been caught crossing the border 28 times since 1999, was shot twice as he allegedly led Contreras, her brother-in-law and another man through a hole in the fence that divides El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
Mexican police found Ortiz's body on the south side of the Rio Grande after the Aug. 8 shooting.
Border Patrol officials have said the unidentified agent shot Ortiz, who was carrying a pair of bolt cutters, after seeing him pick up a rock as Contreras was being arrested.
Garcia, an attorney with the United Neighborhood Organization, a group that provides free legal services for immigration court hearings, said Contreras made the claim during interviews before an immigration hearing.
Contreras voluntarily returned to Mexico on Thursday, and Garcia said the 25-year-old Chihuahua City woman was being interviewed by Mexican authorities.
Doug Mosier, a Border Patrol spokesman in El Paso, said Contreras' allegation "is not consistent with the preliminary findings that resulted from the interviews of the witness done by multiple law enforcement agencies immediately after the shooting."
The case has been turned over the U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's Office. Daryl Fields, a spokesman for Sutton's office, said the case is still under review.
Mexican officials have previously decried the shooting and have said they intended to investigate the case as a homicide. |
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