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Local Campaigns -
Law Enforcement Accountability
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Wednesday, May 20 2009 20:27 |
 On May 20, 1997, 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez came home from school and hiked onto his family's isolated property on the Texas-Mexico border to graze his herd of 45 goats. Hernandez, a high-school student with no criminal record, dreamt of becoming a U.S. Marine or park ranger. Like most of the other residents of tiny Redford, Texas, Hernandez frequently carried a gun, occasionally firing it into the air to scare off animals that bothered his goats.
Unbeknownst to Hernandez or the 90 other residents of his town, U.S. Marines were stationed along the town's border to patrol for drug smugglers from Mexico. As he followed his flock of goats into the desert that day, Hernandez saw something move in the distance. Thinking it was wild dogs or a snake, he fired two shots into the air with his World War I-era shotgun. As he prepared to shoot again, the Marines — who, in camouflage, were likely the source of movement — shot Hernandez in the back. They waited more than 20 minutes to call for medical assistance, and Hernandez bled to death within sight of the house he grew up in.
Hernandez was the first U.S. civilian to be killed by U.S. armed forces since the 1970 political protests at Kent State University in Ohio. The practice of sending troops to patrol U.S. property for drug smugglers escalated in the '80s when President Reagan loosened the Posse Comitatus Act, which had prevented the practice. The U.S. government later settled with the Hernandez family for $1.9 million, and in 1999, the Pentagon announced that U.S. armed forces would no longer routinely patrol the U.S.-Mexico border for drugs. |
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Last Updated on Friday, July 24 2009 14:41 |
