Border Patrol Agent Charged With Murder

Caving in to pressure from the Mexican government and relying on testimony of fellow illegal border crossers, prosecutors in one Arizona county have criminally charged a United States Border Patrol agent for shooting an aggressive illegal immigrant in the act of violating federal law.

Border Patrol agent Nicholas Corbett has actually been charged with first-degree murder for the January shooting of the illegal alien who was part of a group apprehended about a 150 yards north of the Mexico-Arizona border between Bisbee and Douglas. Corbett said the Mexican man, Francisco Javier Dominguez, became aggressive and attacked him with rocks after being detained.

Dominguez had illegally crossed into the U.S. with three others – his two brothers and a sister-in-law – who have become the prosecution’s main witnesses. Based on their testimony, Cochise County prosecutors say the shooting was not legally justified because Dominguez did not represent a threat when he was shot.

When the incident happened in mid January, the Mexican government immediately sent the United States a diplomatic note stating its “firm condemnation” and demanded a full investigation. Relatives in Mexico took the streets and demanded the agent involved be punished and brought to justice.

The head of the Arizona Chapter of the National Border Patrol Council says this case is part of a nationwide pattern of politically motivated prosecutions against Border Patrol agents. The theory doesn’t sound terribly far-fetched considering that, earlier this year, two Border Patrol agents went to prison for shooting an admitted Mexican drug smuggler caught bringing in 743 pounds of marijuana near El Paso Texas.

Federal prosecutors actually went into Mexico and offered the drug dealer – who was only shot in the buttocks–immunity to testify against the veteran agents who were subsequently convicted on charges of causing serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharge of a firearm and violating the drug smuggler’s civil rights.