From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: A Rodney King case on the border
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 08:28:46 GMT

/** pacnews.sample: 192.0 **/
** Topic: Rodney King Case on the Border **
** Written 11:55 am  Dec 22, 1992 by pacificnews in cdp:pacnews.sample **
From: Pacific News Service <pacificnews>
Subject: Rodney King Case on the Border

/* Written 11:51 am  Dec 22, 1992 by pacificnews@igc.apc.org in igc:pacnews.storie */
/* ---------- "Rodney King Case on the Border" ---------- */
COPYRIGHT PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
450 Mission Street,  Room 506
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-243-4364

OPINION AND ANALYSIS -- 835 WORDS

A RODNEY KING CASE ON THE BORDER

EDITOR'S NOTE: When an unarmed illegal alien was shot by a U.S. 
Border Patrol agent last June and left to die, civil rights activists 
believed at last they had a case that could spotlight official brutality 
against immigrants. But after a two-week trial, a jury in Tucson 
acquitted the agent of all charges in what some see as a repeat of the 
Simi Valley verdict in the beating of Rodney King. PNS correspondent 
Debbie Nathan writes widely on immigration issues.

BY DEBBIE NATHAN, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

The border just had its Rodney King case, minus the video camera, but 
this time the victim wasn't a native-born black. He was brown, and an 
"illegal alien." So his murder inspired no insurrections, and hardly any 
press.

His name was Dario Miranda Valenzuela. He was a Mexican laborer, 
age 26, married, with two small children. At dusk last June 12, Miranda 
was crossing into the U.S. through a canyon near Nogales, Arizona. 
The area is known as a drug smuggling corridor, and that evening, five 
U.S. Border Patrol agents were patrolling it, including 29-year-old 
Michael Elmer. As Miranda made his way, gunfire suddenly rang out. 
When the air cleared, Miranda had two bullets from Elmer's AR-15 in 
his back. But instead of calling an ambulance, Elmer dragged the 
wounded man 175 feet and hid him in a crevice.

A coroner later noted the corpse's clutched hands, indicating Miranda 
had died in agony. If medical aid had been summoned immediately, he 
might have lived. Instead, the shooting wasn't reported until 15 hours 
later -- by Elmer's partner. The partner later told authorities that Elmer 
planned to come back the next day to bury the body and asked him, at 
gun point, to help. Instead, the partner reported the shooting to his 
superiors and Elmer was arrested. 

Arizona authorities charged Elmer with first degree murder. It was the 
first time in memory that a border patrol agent had been criminally 
indicted for killing a civilian in the line of duty.

Human and civil rights activists were hopeful. Since the mid-1980s, the 
border patrol has been beefed up with personnel and weaponry -- 
ostensibly to fight a "War on Drugs." With increased militarization, 
rights groups have documented wanton use of lethal force against local 
residents, including undocumented immigrants. But as an El Paso 
Times investigation recently revealed, agents are virtually never 
indicted. The situation is so disturbing that Americas Watch reported 
on it this year, and several U.S. and Mexico civil rights groups 
petitioned the Organization of American States to investigate.

Elmer's trial, then, was a landmark chance for justice. It began 
December 1, and as it progressed, testimony revealed that agents 
routinely violate regulations, and that they violated several the night 
Miranda was killed. Elmer and his colleagues had fired warning shots, 
which the border patrol prohibits. Then they failed to report them, 
even though every shot must be documented. Agents admitted that 
they frequently conceal shootings by replacing spent bullets with others 
saved from target practice. And in shooting Miranda in the back, Elmer 
also ignored rules that ban firing on fleeing persons.

Elmer defended himself by claiming the border was a "war zone" and 
immigrants crossing it were the enemy. When he spotted Miranda, he 
opened fire and the Mexican ran southward. Then, Elmer said, he got a 
radioed message that armed men were coming from the north. He 
heard more gunfire and "freaked out." Miranda was running, wearing 
camouflage pants, combat boots and a water canteen. The canteen 
looked like a holster. Elmer fired.

He was a combatant, Elmer said. He was fighting the war on drugs. The 
border was his battleground. He was afraid for his wife and kids.

But none of this jibed with other information. Miranda was unarmed 
and had no drugs. (According to his family, he was crossing the canyon 
to seek work in the dry-wall trade in Tucson.) Nor was Elmer, 
according to his ex-wife, a stickler about drugs. She told Justice 
Department officials in an earlier investigation he had once pilfered 
cocaine from a drug bust and brought it home for the two of them to 
use. And Elmer faces assault charges from a separate incident in which 
he allegedly sprayed unarmed border-crossers with machine gun fire.

The judge dropped the first-degree murder charge and left the jury the 
choice of convicting Elmer for mere manslaughter or negligent 
homicide. But for a panel inflamed with Border-as-Apocalypse-Now 
rhetoric, even these lenient charges were excessive. They acquitted 
Elmer not only of killing but of what he had explicitly admitted -- 
covering it up.

It was Simi Valley all over again, with one exception: no one cared. 
There were no riots in Nogales, no national headlines.

What the media did publish that same week were two other items. 
One, the results of a survey of Latino attitudes, reported that most 
people in this country -- including those of Mexican descent -- think 
"there are too many immigrants" here. The other was the signing of 
the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the U.S. 
and Mexico, allowing the free flow of all manner of money and goods. 

All manner, that is, except people struggling to change an impossible 
southern pittance for a more promising gringo wage. With the Elmer 
verdict, the message is out: Most people here are easily convinced that 
the border means drugs and disorder, that those crossing it are the 
enemy.

As long as these attitudes prevail, federal border agents will run amok. 
And they will do so with impunity.

(12211992)	**** END ****	 COPYRIGHT PNS

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