Border Patrol Agents

Two Border Patrol agents have been acquitted of charges stemming from a violent struggle with a man in custody, a confrontation videotaped by a security camera. The defense argued that the tape did not show the man, Erik Mendoza Rubio, taking aggressive actions against agents Robert Curtin and John Wallace. A jury deliberated for an hour Monday before finding the men innocent of charges that they violated Mendoza's civil rights.

Citing repeated congressional failures to address the country's illegal immigration problem, a bipartisan group of 37 California House members has called for 3,000 additional federal agents to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), who circulated the letter among the state delegation, said almost half of all illegal immigrants apprehended by the Immigration and Naturalization Service enter through San Diego County.

Border Patrol agents confiscated nearly 35 pounds of marijuana here Thursday, less than two days after seizing about 40 pounds of cocaine that had an estimated street value of more than $1.2 million, officials said. Shortly after noon Thursday, agents arrested a male U.S. citizen and his female companion, a legal visitor from Mexico, and confiscated 34.7 pounds of marijuana from the spare-tire well of the couple's car, officials said.

Two Border Patrol agents stole $267,000 worth of car parts from the agency's new sport utility vehicles and bartered them for goods and services from an off-road equipment warehouse, federal officials said Friday. Elwood Ray Keeran, 40, was arrested Friday at the agency's Brown Field station in San Diego on charges of conspiracy and theft of government property. Mark J.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed an unidentified Latino man early Thursday after the victim threatened the agent with a knife near the U.S.-Mexico border, San Diego police said. The incident occurred at 9:45 a.m., police said, about a half-mile north of the border, near the intersection of Dairy Mart Road and Interstate 5. The county medical examiner's office said the dead man was Latino and about 20 years old. The area is heavily traveled by illegal migrants headed north.

The Justice Department is investigating allegations that a U.S. Border Patrol agent severely beat an undocumented migrant last week, officials said. Hermelindo Sandoval Martinez, 24, was in good condition Tuesday at Chula Vista Community Hospital with internal injuries, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was interviewed by the Mexican Consulate and the American Friends Service Committee, both of which called for an investigation.

A convicted smuggler of aliens was awarded $65,000 for injuries inflicted in 1986 by a Border Patrol agent who helped arrest the man at the San Onofre immigration checkpoint. Arturo Halog Huerte, 27, and a U.S. citizen, suffered a broken nose in the incident when Border Patrol Agent L. E. Frost hit him with a flashlight, and a fractured skull from subsequent blows. However, visiting U.S.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed a Latino man Saturday night after the man repeatedly threatened the agent, San Diego Police Department homicide investigators said Sunday. Agents Thaddeus Szymczak and David Teeple were patrolling near the Mexican border when they saw several people hiding in the brush near Tia Juana Street and Willow Road west of the San Ysidro border crossing.

Repercussions from the violence in Los Angeles reached the California-Mexico border Friday as a contingent of riot-equipped Border Patrol agents headed north to help police and National Guard troops bring that city under control. Federal officials disclosed very little about the deployment of the Border Patrol agents, part of more than 1,000 federal officers ordered to Los Angeles on Friday morning by President George Bush.