Washington: Sergio Hernandez died at 15, shot dead by policeman Jesus Mesa. His would have been a story of American violence both tragic and banal if the victim had not been in Mexico and the shooter in the US.
The thorny legal question raised by cross-border homicide heads to the US Supreme Court tomorrow.
At issue is whether the teen’s family has the constitutional right to sue Mesa, a Border Patrol agent, in US courts.
The Supreme Court takes up the case amid a deeply divisive national debate on President Donald Trump’s vow to build a US wall on the border with Mexico to stem illegal immigration.
The shooting occurred June 7, 2010. Hernandez was playing around with three friends in the dry riverbed of the Rio Grande that separates the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez from its Texan neighbor El Paso.
The four friends were racing up concrete embankment to touch the barbed-wire fence on the US side, and racing back down. The unmarked border line runs through the middle of the culvert.
Their game bothered Mesa, who was patrolling the area on bicycle. He shot Hernandez in the head, and the teen died just 60 feet from the border on Mexican soil.
The Border Patrol agent later explained that Hernandez and his friends had refused to obey his order to stop the game and had thrown rocks at him.
Mesa left the scene without helping his victim, accompanied by colleagues who had come to give him back-up.
According to the family of the victim, the teen was shot while unarmed and presented no danger.
The case sparked protests in Ciudad Juarez and a diplomatic mini-crisis between the neighbouring countries, with Mexico’s then-president Felipe Calderon demanding a “profound and impartial” investigation by the Obama administration.
The previous week, another Mexican teenager, Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, had died after being beaten by border police at the southwest crossing between Tijuana and San Diego.
It was in this context of repeated US official violence against Mexican nationals at the border that the parents of Hernandez decided to sue Mesa, accusing him of violating the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which bars unjustified deadly force.
Their lawsuit for unlawful use of lethal force also cites the Fifth Amendment, which among other provisions says that a life cannot be taken without the “due process of law.”
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ultimately upheld a decision to dismiss the case, stating that US courts had no jurisdiction since the victim was Mexican and died in Mexico.
