Border securityCBP agent fatally shoots knife-wielding Mexican at border crossing

A Mexican man who wielded a knife at a California crossing on was fatally shot by a U.S. border inspector Wednesday around midnight.

Pete Flores, the San Diego field office director of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP), said the CBP officer fired his gun four times, hitting the man in the chest and neck at the port of entry in downtown Calexico, about 120 miles east of San Diego and across the border from Mexicali, Mexico.

Flores said that the 35-year-old Mexican, who was not permitted to enter the United States, was on a bicycle in a vehicle inspection lane for “trusted travelers” and appeared as if he wasn’t going to stop. The Sun Herald reports that the man produced an 8-inch-long knife after the inspector grabbed his other arm and forced the man to drop his bike.

Flores said that the man raised his knife and moved toward the inspector, who was backing away when he fired.

The man was pronounced dead at a hospital to which he was rushed. The officer, who worked in Calexico since joining CBP in February 2008, was unharmed.

“At this point it appears that protocol was followed,” Flores said. “When we have an individual who is using deadly force, our protocol is not using anything less, to equal that force.”

On Wednesday evening Mexico’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing “profound regret” and calling for the incident to be clarified.

“Mexico has signaled, repeatedly, that the use of lethal force in migratory control and border security efforts must be a last resort, in addition to being proportionate to the circumstances of each situation,” the department said.

It added that the country’s embassy in Washington and consulate in Calexico were following the case closely.

CBP last week said that agency employees used firearms twenty-eight times during the fiscal year that ended on 30 September, and other weapons like stun guns, pepper-ball launchers, and batons 740 times. The agency did not say how many incidents resulted in death.

Flores noted that the Calexico inspector was put on paid administrative leave, which is standard procedure in a fatal shooting. The incident is now being investigated, among others by the DHS inspector general.

Flores said he did not know what words were exchanged between the inspector and the Mexican man or what the motive was for crossing or wielding the knife.

The incident was videotaped by CBP, Flores said, but the agency has not yet decided when to release it.