Mexican Officials: Surveillance Camera Recorded Fatal Border Shooting
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A police surveillance camera in Mexico reportedly recorded the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old Mexican teen by a U.S. Border Patrol agent early Wednesday.
Jose Larrinarga Talamantes, a spokesman for the Sonora Attorney General's Office in Hermosillo, told Nogales International that state investigators have confirmed the existence of the video with officials in Nogales, Sonora, and have asked for a copy.
"But it hasn't arrived yet," Talamantes told Nogales International.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The camera that purportedly captured the incident belongs to a 911-type state police command center that belongs to state authorities and not local police, meaning local authorities are unaware of its contents.
Several conflicting accounts of the shooting death of the 17-year-old, Ramses Barron Torres, have emerged since early Wednesday.
FBI officials claim Torres was shot at about 3 a.m. as U.S. Border Patrol agents were attempting to arrest suspected drug smugglers near the border fence and bystanders began throwing rocks at them. But a 17-year-old friend who claims to have witnessed the shooting told Nogales International that no rocks were thrown and that Torres was standing five or six yards from the fence on Mexican soil when he was fatally shot.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to the United States, told reporters in Mexico City on Thursday that it appeared to be "clear that the death was the result of a gunshot wound."
FBI spokesman Manuel Johnson declined to comment on Sarukhan's claim or that of the unidentified witness.
"We're not commenting on that. The investigation is ongoing," Johnson told FoxNews.com on Friday. "We're going to collect our information and facts and present it to [authorities]."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Johnson said the incident is being investigated as an assault on a federal officer. He declined further comment.
Alejandro Palacios, a spokesman for the neighboring Mexican city of Nogales, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that agents fired warning shots in the air after Torres and other Mexican youths had illegally crossed the border.
Palacios said the youths then threw rocks at agents but none of them were shot. He said Torres, who lived in the neighboring Mexican city, died after he landed on Mexico's side of the fence.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sonoran police said Torres' three companions left his body outside the emergency room of the General Hospital in Nogales on the Mexico side of the border and then left in a vehicle with tinted windows.
Before the unidentified companions left, they told hospital guards that Torres had been climbing a border wall to enter the United States when a Border Patrol agent fired a single shot that hit the teen.
The state police statement said an autopsy determined the bullet had gone through Torres' right arm and entered his chest, puncturing a lung.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}While the victim's body had numerous scrapes and bruises — apparently caused by falling onto a gravel pile on the Mexican side — Sonoran police said the autopsy determined that the bullet wound was the cause of death.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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