Border Patrol Agent Shoots Stoner

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127577713
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/08/us-border-patrol-uni.html#p0

I read quite a bit of news online and this story hits particularly close to home as I live 40 mins. away from where this took place. One website I follow is www.boingboing.com. They post quite a bit of interesting news and science related items and it is well worth a visit or two. They also allow comments to their posting as this one, at the time I write this, has 131 comments from many different viewpoints. I read everyone of them and found most to be laughable.

A majority of the comments are from know it alls that think Google is their friend. Try reading one weeks worth of the El Paso Times or the Las Cruces Sun News to get a taste of what the Border Patrol agents and law enforcement in this area go through. I do not condone what happened but I can understand it. I saw ONE comment from someone who lives here, the rest are from wannabe diplomats from across the US, one lives in TN, one lives in NC...you have no clue what they deal with on a daily basis here.

The agent was threatened by an overwhelming force...yes...overwhelming as in more than one or two individuals, he is going to react in kind as would any of you if your safety and life were threatened. The boy comes out from behind a column with his hands up in the middle of an altercation with an unknown number of other individuals. Out of the corner of his eye, the agent sees this...he's already looking in seven different directions at once. His reaction was a natural one in self defense not malicious intent directed at one particular individual.

While it is tragic that a child died, it can also be a wake up call to the powers that be that more manpower is necessary in places like El Paso. Had there been enough agents on the scene, the situation could have been contained and tragedy averted. They are grossly understaffed, both here and along the rest of the border.

With the variety of weapons being used by the people in this area, any one of those rocks could have easily been a hand grenade or Molotov cocktail. Anyone who thinks I'm blowing this out of proportion, read the paper here. They are gunning down children with AK-47s and Uzis in Juarez. The world would love to see the law enforcement agents around here carrying Tasers, rubber bullets and shotguns loaded with rock salt and sandbags. The drug cartels would throw a friggin' party that day. Cause they sure as hell aren't giving up their very lethal firepower.

If this was an incident of one or two people confronting the agent in question and he shot one, I would simply say, "Hang his ass from the highest tree" but it's not. Nothin' for nothin', not one of you reading this, if put in a similar situation and had a gun in your hand, would place said gun on the ground and say, "It's ok...let's talk." You would do your utmost to survive as this is human nature and an undeniable fact of life.