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25-43 with 2?
That's correct.
Alright, 10-4, copy that.
You know what? This is them.
I'm on the 42 fence line, headin' east right now.
Alright, 10-4, copy that.
No, you're good. Sit right down in this chair right here.
Perfect.
Let's see. Perfect.
Rodney Scott. So, starting in 1992,
early on, I was a border patrol agent here in San Diego.
Later the chief patrol agent in El Centro,
then I bounced back to San Diego as the chief.
And then, ultimately, I was asked to be the chief
of the U.S. Border Patrol in February of 2020.
At the baseline level...
the United States Border Patrol is charged with protecting America.
It's literally just knowing who and what is coming into our home.
You don't know if it's drug smugglers, you don't know if it's human traffickers,
you don't know if it's terrorists.
And if you don't have anybody there
figuring out who and what is coming into our country...
we are at risk.
So, we have 328 ports of entry
where people are supposed to come and go from the country...
and Border Patrol's job is just to make sure they do.
He was an illegal immigrant
that officers were trying to take back to Mexico,
but at the border, something went wrong.
The incident happened at the San Ysidro port of entry.
The man is now in critical condition at a local hospital
and is not expected to survive.
I think it was around noon.
We had heard something from the news about an in-custody death at the border
from the night before.
Somebody was on life support, a Mr. Anastasio Hernández.
Normally, in a regular homicide investigation,
usually, there's a briefing that occurs right after the event.
Once they know that,
that death has occurred or death is imminent,
then the homicide unit will come out.
But, in this case, the Border Patrol didn't tell us about it.
And then we were told that it was treated like a medical event,
so people had gone home from the night shift,
witnesses weren't held.
And the crime scene had already been cleaned up.
I mean, it was basically gone.
There was no crime scene investigation.
So, we did not have a clear picture of everything that occurred there.
Last month, Anastasio Hernández died after being shocked with a stun gun
by U.S. Border Patrol agents.
First of all, who was Anastasio Hernández?
He was 42 years old, he'd been in the U.S. for 26 years,
crossed as a teenager, illegally, to work here.
He built pools here, he had a wife here,
and had five U.S. citizen children who were living here.
In a few weeks, we can expect a civil lawsuit on behalf of the family.
It was Maria whom I met.
And she was, of course, distraught.
But she basically said, "I want justice."
And as I took the case,
I understood that with a civil case like this
against the Border Patrol...
it's like...
killing the king.
You wanna make sure that you don't miss.
We knew this may be difficult...
but we also knew from the very beginning that there was something more to this case
because the Border Patrol was requested to turn over
certain evidence and information,
and in certain critical respects, they failed to do so.
Early on in the investigation, we had some witness video,
but you couldn't really see anything.
So, we wanted to get video from the Border Patrol
to see what happened at that spot.
It's a section of the border called Whiskey 2.
And this is right where they do the deportation walkout.
So, we assumed they would have cameras there, which they did.
But, they said they did not have the video from that camera...
and we kept getting the runaround.
They said they didn't know how to use the system...
they gave us the wrong location at one point.
After a while, they did provide other video
from before they transported Mr. Hernández...
but that was the best we got.
It was frustrating.
You think of the busiest border in the world,
we could get that video and that it would exist...
and we never got it.
Yes, I do.
It was an illegal alien that Border Patrol agents arrested.
They were sending him back south,
and he kinda flipped out.
Multiple agents responded, and ultimately, he ended up...
he ended up passing away.
I don't have all the specifics of those, but I know at least one of the cameras
that they think something was erased wasn't a real camera.
It was a decoy camera that had been installed years and years ago
when the Border Patrol had a sub-office right there at the port of entry,
and it was to deter people from jumping the pedestrian gate
and running north,
but it, literally, was like 1990s-era fake camera,
that was never hooked to anything.
San Diego has very limited video capability,
and most of it is pretty outdated.
There was nothing that was--
I've not seen any evidence whatsoever that anything was deleted or is missing.
There's no deleted video. No.
10News has uncovered new details tonight
about the immigrant who died after being deported.
The autopsy results have now been released
on the controversial death of Anastasio Hernández.
But it only adds to the mystery of what actually happened.
The San Diego medical examiner
is listing the cause of death as a heart attack
due to the altercation with law enforcement.
But the coroner also found methamphetamines in his blood,
which raised the question, had methamphetamines somehow contributed
to the altercation?
Would counsel please introduce yourselves and state who you represent?
Gene Iredale for the plaintiffs,
and I'm here with Maria Puga, who is the widow.
Now, you understand that you're under oath?
-I do. -And that that oath requires you
to tell the truth in this deposition?
Yes.
Let's talk about the encounter with Mr. Hernández.
From your observations of Anastasio's demeanor,
he did not appear to be drunk, correct?
He did not appear to be drunk.
And you found no weapons?
-No. -Right? Found no drugs?
No.
And so, he did not appear to be under the influence of drugs, correct?
I don't know that to be a fact.
At this point, then, you drove him to the area known as Whiskey 2?
-Yes, sir. -He was going to be returned to Mexico.
-Yes, sir. -So, you began to take off
-the handcuffs from him. -Yes.
Once you took off one of the handcuffs, he started to move around too much,
for your perception of your safety, is that fair?
Yes.
And you grabbed Anastasio, correct?
Yes.
And there was a struggle between you and him?
Yes.
He was kicking at agents.
He was thrashing,
thrashing around like, basically, like an alligator.
If you can imagine the TV show, The Crocodile Hunter,
and what an al-- what a crocodile does when it's--
when it gets its game and kills it, and it starts rolling and twisting.
Do you remember if Mr. Hernández stopped resisting at any point?
No, I don't.
That never happened as far as you're concerned?
As far as my memory goes, no, sir.
So, you went in and used force?
I used physical techniques, yes.
You quarrel with the use of the word "force"?
No.
You used force, yes?
I thought a better descriptive would be "physical techniques."
Now, do you know the words in Spanish for, "I cannot breathe"?
I do not.
Did you hear him say, at some point,
-"I cannot breathe"? -I did not.
If you're yelling and screaming, you're moving air and you're breathing.
You at the time, I believe,
were looking out at a crowd that was gathering.
-Is that true? -Yes.
And the people in the crowd, some of them were saying,
"Stop being so brutal," or words to that effect.
"Stop what you're doing." Right.
"Stop hitting him, stop hurting him."
Correct.
And I didn't understand what they were, I mean, I guess from his screaming,
when they were, you know, when he was screaming,
"Stop hurting me, stop punching me," whatever,
and the crowd kinda just fueled off of that,
and just basically repeated what he was saying.
And I looked at him and I looked at the crowd,
I'm like, who's pun--
Nobody's punching him, he's just laying on the ground,
banging his head on the ground.
It's all self-inflicted,
so I didn't understand why he was, I mean, saying that.
So, he was hitting his head on the ground?
Yes.
That was a primary concern, that he was injuring himself,
and we did not want him to injure himself or injure us.
So, one of the reasons you took him down was for his own safety, correct?
Correct.
And the crowd foolishly thought that there was some brutality going on,
-correct? -Right.
And they didn't understand that Mr. Hernández
was hitting his own head and causing this pain
-to himself, correct? -Right.
And they didn't understand that the agents
were merely doing their job and nothing more, correct?
They were trying to stop him
-from hurting himself. -Yes.
And they were able to do that until, finally,
unfortunately, he stopped breathing, correct?
-I-- Yes. -Yes.
They helped him to that extent, at least.
Thank you so much. That's all I have.
Off the record at 1:25 p.m.
So, at that point...
we had statements of the agents...
we had a video where you couldn't see anything.
And you have nothing more, no case.
I've been a reporter for a long time.
And my entire career as a journalist has been reporting on the Border Patrol.
So, when Anastasio was killed,
I knew that I had to look into this.
And I started calling whoever, whoever was responsible,
Border Patrol, San Diego Police Department,
and there was really very little information.
But there were eyewitnesses, and you can hear them in the videotape.
The police had never been able to track them down.
So, for me, there was this hunt.
I spent about a month,
and I interviewed people south of the border...
anybody who was associated with the case.
And I finally found another person who was there that night.
They were up on a bridge, and they had video.
It was new evidence...
but they were very scared about coming forward
because of retaliation from the Border Patrol.
So, the person said, "John can contact me...
"but I'm not gonna give him the video, he can't see the video,
but I'll talk to him and I'll tell him what I saw."
I talked to her for a long time.
She was, at the time, 22 years old.
And she was really scared.
So, she put a kibosh on everything.
Time went by...
months.
But I now had her cell phone number.
So, I would send her cases that were highly suspicious cases...
people being shot, people being killed, people being brutalized at the border.
And I think that kinda softened her.
It took me two years
but she finally said, "I'll send you the video."
So, she sent me a CD in an envelope.
And the return address was just "Disneyland."
Just go back to the beginning where you just started.
In the deposition testimony, the agents say that he got up,
he tried to attack them,
he lunged for them, he kicked them.
But right now, I just see somebody who's lying on the ground.
Alright, let me just do some noise reduction here
so we can see a little better.
So, at this point,
you could hear one of the agents yell, three times in a row, "Quit resisting!"
But he's not resisting.
So, my take on what is happening here is,
he's not saying "Quit resisting" to Anastasio,
he's saying "Quit resisting,"
so that everybody who's watching will think
that this guy was being combative.
Now, you can see agents starting to pile and punch, punch,
you can see that arm and that fist.
And then, one of the agents, somehow, grabs his pants.
I mean, I can't tell what's in an agent's mind
but it just feels like they're trying to teach him a lesson somehow.
Because he's not a threat.
Latino community groups say they want answers
about the death of Anastasio Hernández-Rojas.
Previously undisclosed video from two years ago
was obtained by reporter, John Carlos Frey,
and aired in a national special Friday night on PBS
has sparked fresh calls for justice in the case.
There were similar protests in several other cities today,
including Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, and San Francisco.
Don't hide behind your badge!
Don't hide behind your uniforms!
John Carlos Frey, what is next in this case?
I know the civil suit's filed. What is next here?
We don't know the officers' names,
there are no criminal proceedings in this case.
The family has been waiting for two years,
so we're hoping that members of Congress watch this
and push that stone up the hill a little bit further.
We already had a civil case going on,
but after there was a public outcry,
the Department of Justice finally gets involved.
They begin a Grand Jury investigation
to assess individual criminal culpability.
And it's happening as we continue to conduct
depositions for the civil case.
Now, you're aware of an ongoing Grand Jury investigation,
is that true?
-Yes. -And that the Grand Jury proceeding
is a criminal investigation
into the death of Anastasio Hernández-Rojas?
Yes.
Alright.
On the night of the incident with Mr. Hernández,
is it true that you were the person who had tased him
and who was there when he stopped breathing?
Object, lacks foundation, and I advise you to decline to answer.
I decline to answer based on my Fifth Amendment right.
As soon as the tasing began,
you turned to intercept a man and a woman
that had a camera phone, correct?
On the advice of counsel,
I, unfortunately, must decline to answer the question.
You attempted to fire the taser
even though he was not resisting in any way?
I decline to answer this question.
You believed that the man and the woman
had taken video of the incident, is that right?
On the advice of counsel,
I, unfortunately, must decline to answer the question.
You wanted to hurt him. Is that right?
I decline to answer this question.
And then, you, yourself, erased the video
on the camera phone, correct?
On the advice of counsel,
I, unfortunately, must decline to answer the question.
As soon as the Grand Jury is terminated and it takes no further action,
I will be able to respond.
Now that the Justice Department
has confirmed that a Grand Jury is investigating,
at a press conference this morning, the family of Anastasio Hernández-Rojas
said today it's a step in the right direction.
It seems the Department of Justice is, in fact, doing its job,
they committed to us that they would
use all of their resources to investigate this case
and it appears that they are doing just that.
10News reached out to the government attorneys,
we were told since it's in active litigation, there is no comment.
The Grand Jury has been pending for, now, three years.
We don't know if that is close to concluding or not.
We've made inquiries, but we have no answers.
The Department of Justice announced on Friday
that no border agents will be prosecuted
for the killing of Anastasio Hernández-Rojas.
The Department of Justice say there was insufficient evidence
to pursue federal charges against the agents,
even though eyewitness video showed him being tased and beaten.
Federal officials say they do not believe agents acted with malice.
They say the meth in his system also contributed to his death.
This is a devastating decision for the family of Anastasio...
but Customs and Border Protection
has long enjoyed virtual impunity in this country.
I'm Raul Ortiz.
I'm the chief of the United States Border Patrol.
We're deeply based in tradition,
and I'm very, very proud of the fact that we've got 98 years of tradition
that we started with and that we still hang on to.
We like to consider ourselves sort of paramilitary,
and, so, we have a rank structure,
35, 36% of my officers are prior military,
and so, we are steep in tradition.
Our motto's "Honor First" and we live and stand by that.
Not at all. I think that there's a serious misunderstanding
about what happens in some of these border environments,
in these communities,
but also, we're a big law enforcement organization.
When you think about the almost 3,000 professional staff
and almost 20,000 Border Patrol agents, plus contractors and others,
I mean, 24,000 people are tied to the Border Patrol,
a 6.1 billion dollar budget
is tied to the United States Border Patrol.
And so, that's an awful lot of pressure,
but it's also, I think, a high expectation
that we're gonna do everything we can to secure our borders,
take care of our communities, take care of each other.
I remember it vaguely,
not enough to have a conversation about it.
Yeah, that was the one at Whiskey 2? Yeah.
-And I wanna s-- -Tell them go back to--
-I don't-- -Yeah.
I'd be careful stressing that because I can think of one.
Compean, Ramos.
They did, but it was still successfully prosecuted, so I'd-- Yeah.
Yeah.
There is appropriate accountability
and oversight in the U.S. Border Patrol, CBP, and DHS,
and we continue to add, I think, additional oversight,
whether it's, you know, looking at our
use of force policies that we have in place,
whether it's working with other organizations,
so we continuously strive
to be better at who we are as an organization.
Even though the Department of Justice did not prosecute the agents,
we were still fighting the civil case...
but the government had delayed
the civil case for three years by using appeals.
And I became concerned about losing witnesses,
I was concerned about the passage of time.
So, we decided to settle the civil case.
Alright, so...
we're gonna nerd out today about international human rights law.
In this course, I am going to talk about what
human rights are in terms of their legal protections.
And part of what I want to acculturate you to,
is what it is you don't know,
and what it is you would need to know
in order to answer the question being asked.
Border Patrol have obstructed this case as much as they could,
and we are tired of it.
Because it is plain to us that there is something rotten throughout the agency.
Andrea Guerrero from the Southern Border Communities Coalition
is my classmate from law school.
When she told me about Anastasio's case,
I had spent the prior 10 years litigating cases of extrajudicial killings
in Colombia and in Guatemala,
and it was just very familiar to me.
And I said, "Well, have you ever considered
bringing a case before an international court?"
It's the only place where you can sue the United States
for human rights abuse.
They cannot put anybody in prison...
but they can challenge the entire Border Patrol system...
because the way that we define excessive use of force in the United States
could be a violation of international law.
In order for us to bring this case, we need to revisit the investigation...
but also, we need to learn more
about how the Border Patrol operates.
So, our next guest is a very brave person.
She worked for the U.S. Border Patrol and has now turned into a critic
and our staunch ally in these fights, Jenn Budd.
Yay, Jenn!
So, Pedro was talking about how Border Patrol agents
commit a lot of brutality and atrocious crimes against migrants,
and yet, Border Patrol agents are never held accountable.
Let's take the recent case that just happened.
Young man, they claimed that he picked up a rock
and tried to throw it at the agent,
and so the agent had to shoot him four times and killed him.
This is just nonsense.
But it's not just migrants.
This happens to U.S. citizens who come into contact with Border Patrol agents...
and I have a problem with that.
I was a Border Patrol agent for six years.
I left in June of 2001.
At the time, my choice was to take a promotion
and be quiet about some of the things
that my boss was doing, or just quit.
So, I ended up resigning...
and I started down this journey of trying to understand my involvement
as a Border Patrol agent...
because I felt like I was part of a system that is just cruel.
And I feel guilt-ridden
that I ever wore that uniform.
So, my purpose became telling the truth...
about the Border Patrol.
Eventually, I got hooked up
with the Southern Border Community Coalition...
and Andrea asked me to come in and she said,
"We want you to look at the Anastasio case to see if you can see anything."
And Maria Puga, Anastasio's widow, happened to be there.
I told her what I was gonna do
and I said, "Well, I don't know if I'm gonna find anything."
And Maria threw her arms around me and just started crying,
and said, "I knew all Border Patrol agents couldn't be bad."
So, that's how I became involved.
Zoe.
Come here, Zozo.
Good girl, you're such a good girl. You're such a good girl, Zozo.
Hi, Mr. Frey. My name is Jenn Budd.
I am a former agent with the United States Border Patrol.
I was recently asked to look at the Anastasio Hernández case.
My understanding is you've done quite a bit of reporting on it,
and there's something that I don't think you all are aware of.
Did you ever encounter the acronym, CIT,
for Critical Incident Team?
I called a couple of agents I knew,
and one had 20 years and was about to retire
and had never heard of it.
But, in the court filing,
in the federal court filing of the civil trial,
there was one mention in the entire investigation
by the defense attorney for the agents:
"I have reviewed the San Diego Police Department investigation report
and the Border Patrol CIT Report," and I was like...
"What is this?"
The family didn't know what the CIT report was,
the attorneys didn't know what the CIT report was.
It's not just like a human resources report?
I don't know.
But there's no forward-facing information from the agency
about what a CIT team is.
I found one government document
and that's the Use of Force Policy Handbook from 2010,
which says... "The RO," meaning the supervisor in charge of the scene,
"may initiate a parallel investigation
into an incident via a Critical Incident Team."
And I was like...
"Huh."
Because, in 2014, CBP and Border Patrol
come out with a new Use of Force Manual.
And CIT is removed completely from in there.
They just got rid of it.
But they still exist?
I don't know.
You have to find agents that are willing to come forward and talk.
Hi, I was trying to reach Mr. -- please?
Hi, my name is John Carlos Frey.
I am a journalist working on a story about Anastasio Hernández-Ro--
Hello?
My name is John Carlos Frey.
It's a case of about a dozen years ago
and I would really love to talk to you about that.
Continue straight.
Hi.
Mr. --? I'm a journalist.
My name is John Carlos Frey.
We're doing a story on Anastasio Hernández-Rojas.
In 12 miles, exit right.
It's about Anastasio Hernández-Rojas.
It's a case that happened about a dozen years ago.
He was involved--
In 19 miles, turn left.
Hi, Mr. --. Hi.
-I'm a journalist. -I know who you are.
We're not gonna talk, so thank you for your time.
Okay.
Great. No one will talk to me.
How are you?
So, there's a couple of things.
One...
for me, Critical Incident Teams,
I'm not even sure that they exist.
Did you find anything out other than this little bit of information?
How do you know a CIT team was sent?
A woman said she was shot in the head by a Border Patrol agent in Nogales.
This woman's saying she still doesn't know why that much force was used against her.
Here's ABC15 investigator Liliana Soto.
Hi, good morning. I wanted to see if I could speak to Corporal Mintz?
-Mintz? Can I ask... -Yeah.
There was an incident that occurred in June of this year
of a woman getting shot in the head by Border Patrol agents,
and I just wanted to ask some questions about it.
-Okay. Give me one second, okay? -Thank you so much.
Hi, I'm John. Nice to meet you.
Want me to wear a mask?
There was an incident here.
Border Patrol agents shot an individual in the back of the head.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
But can you tell me
what protocol is for a Border Patrol-related shooting?
So, you are just here to tell me that you can't say anything?
He's not gonna talk to us.
Excuse me, are you Chief Bermudez?
Yes, sir.
We were trying to talk to an agent inside
-to just ask about a protocol... -Okay.
...that you guys have with the Border Patrol.
Are you at liberty to talk for a second?
-I can give you a short comment... -Sure.
...but as far as to getting into this conversation,
we don't discuss other people's investigations
just because of professionalism and the legal aspect of it.
-Okay. -So, what was your question?
There was an incident a few months ago where a woman was shot in the head
-by a Border Patrol agent. -Mm-hmm.
It doesn't seem like Nogales Police Department
was even involved at all.
-Right. -So, how does that work?
Protocol has always been,
we've never actually done investigations that had--
were related to any shootings with Border Patrol
and that's something that's been set for, you know, for as long as I can remember.
Do you know about CIT teams? C-I-T?
Oh, Critical Incident Team, yeah.
And what is their-- What is their reason for being on a scene?
I have no idea. You're gonna have to ask them.
You know, I know what I know and I don't know what I don't know, so...
Mr. Núñez, my name is John Frey.
We're trying to get some information,
doing a report on your Critical Incident Teams, CIT.
-I can't seem to find anything online. -Okay.
-Okay. Do they exist? -Alright?
Can you answer that part of it?
What I'm talking about?
Okay. So--
Thank you, sir.
A wake today for a young man shot to death this week
by U.S. Border Patrol agents.
San Diego officials are investigating
the Christmas Eve death of a man who was in Border Patrol custody.
More tensions along U.S.-Mexico border tonight
following the shooting death of a 15-year-old Mexican.
The 17-year-old was shot in the chest by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Border Patrol says the boy was a threat, throwing rocks across the iron fence.
Another fatal shooting near El Paso, Texas.
Serving a warrant when an agent...
Shot and killed a mother of five
while she was in the driver's seat of her car.
There are two very different accounts of what happened just before the shooting.
Few answers have surfaced in that case or others.
Border police say the agent acted in self-defense.
How many cases have you looked through?
Probably at least 45 now.
I'm looking on PACER, which has all the federal cases.
Vast majority of time, it's a civil case...
and I read through these cases from the '90s.
It's always the agent claims that they threw rocks at 'em,
wasn't hurt or wasn't hit, but had to shoot and kill 'em.
It's the same story over and over and over and over again.
So, you're looking at cases that have "CIT, CIIT."
Or an "SET," yeah, for Sector Evidence Team.
-But it's the same thing, right? -Yeah.
And every time in the civil cases,
you see local officials and the attorneys are like...
"So, you didn't have control of this scene,
"and then when you got there, you just relied on the Border Patrol
to tell you what the evidence was, and they go, 'Yeah.'"
You believe anytime there's an incident along the U.S.-Mexico border,
-a CIT team is probably involved? -Yeah.
They're in everything.
Tonight, a little-known unit within the U.S. Border Patrol
is being accused of interfering in fatal encounters
involving its agents.
Human rights advocates calling for a congressional hearing
on what they call "an off-the-books
investigative unit in the U.S. Border Patrol."
John Carlos Frey, can you talk about the new information
that you're uncovering about these shadow police units
within U.S. Border Patrol?
They are preparing evidence, they are doctoring evidence,
they are tampering with evidence, they are deleting evidence,
so that any use of force is warranted.
That is what CIT is doing.
This is how it happens.
They collect only the evidence that supports them
and then the evidence that doesn't support them,
they muck up and nobody can take the case.
And this is designed, systematically,
to alleviate responsibility and liability for the agency.
Thirty-five years of this...
it's the biggest secret the Border Patrol has.
They don't even have an authority to exist.
There is not a police agency, whether it's a municipal police agency
or a federal police agency,
that gets to investigate itself without any oversight, and that's what
the Border Patrol is doing right now.
John Carlos Frey, we want to thank you
for being with us. Investigative journalist
reported extensively on immigration on the Mexico border.
-I'm John Carlos Frey. -How are you?
Senator, thanks for your commitment on this.
Pleasure, thank you.
-Do you mind if we take off masks? -Sure.
Like, if what...
is being suggested here were to be happening in a local police department,
a local sheriff's department, right, there'd be national outrage.
This absolutely needs to be looked into.
Between this and some of the reports and...
recent press coverage,
there's certainly a lotta questions that need to be asked.
Like, what are the policies? What are the protocols?
What are the procedures within the department?
So, it's not like an Internal Affairs department,
where they're just taking a look at employee behavior,
it's therefore the mitigation of civil liability.
And we're sure that these investigative teams
are everywhere along the border...
but to my knowledge,
CIT shouldn't exist because the Border Patrol
doesn't have the authority, which is granted by Congress,
to have an investigative body.
We can't find any thread in Congress
where they have approval, where they have funding.
Yeah, this...
this is serious.
The hearing will come to order.
Today we're holding the first Department of Homeland Security
oversight hearing since January 16, 2018.
We welcome the Secretary of Homeland Security,
the Honorable Ale Mayorkas, to testify before the committee.
And with that, I turn to Senator Padilla.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Number of questions.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here.
I wanna ask about some disturbing reports around the conduct and actions
of Custom and Border Protection agents.
A recent letter sent by the Southern Border Communities Coalition
raises significant concerns about Critical Incident Teams
within the agency that are interfering
with law enforcement investigation of CBP agents.
According to the letter, these teams have been operating for decades
and investigating their own agents without authority.
Secretary Mayorkas, what measures has the Department of Homeland Security taken
towards addressing serious abuses of power
surrounding these Critical Incident Teams?
So, a few things, if I may.
First of all, I am immensely proud
to work alongside the men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
and the misconduct of one,
does not define the heroism and integrity
of the great majority of the men and women.
We do not tolerate misconduct in any part of our workforce,
whether that's U.S. Customs and Border Protection
or any corner of the Department of Homeland Security,
and we will root out misconduct wherever it occurs.
My name is James Tomsheck.
I spent eight years with Internal Affairs in the Border Patrol.
Prior to my arrival,
there was no Internal Affairs operations at CBP,
allowing the Border Patrol to operate for many years,
essentially not being monitored for accountability.
So, it was established that I would head up the office
and address all integrity-related issues throughout the agency.
But upon my arrival, I was taken aback to find
how resistant the Border Patrol was
to having an Office of Internal Affairs that would review their activity.
Unfortunately, the Office of Internal Affairs
was viewed with disdain and mistrust by Border Patrol.
I was not welcomed because I had a law enforcement mindset,
whereas they consider themselves more paramilitary.
Law enforcement officers are taught to subdue,
but the military mindset has you prepared to attack
and overcome your enemy with deadly force.
And every time we had deadly force incidents,
we'd have the same discussion.
I would say, "Hey, you're a law enforcement entity.
"You have an obligation to protect the public,
even if those individuals aren't American citizens."
But I could not get them to change their mindset...
and one of their stock responses to me
would be, "You've never worn green, so you don't understand."
In the summer of 2010,
after the assault on Mr. Hernández-Rojas,
I was briefed on the incident thoroughly
by Internal Affairs agents from the San Diego Field Office.
The Internal Affairs agents confirmed that Mr. Hernández-Rojas
was face down on the ground,
handcuffed behind his back at the time that he was tasered.
We knew this because Border Patrol had their Critical Incident Team
on the ground, collecting the facts...
and they were reporting directly to the chief in San Diego,
who reported to the chief of Border Patrol,
who reported to the deputy commissioner from Customs and Border Protection.
After I felt we had established facts with the case,
the deputy commissioner, at the time, summoned me to his office...
and he gave me a direct order to submit false reports
indicating that Mr. Hernández-Rojas
was standing unrestrained and actively resisting arrest
when he was tasered.
But the other problem with the Hernández investigation
was the stonewalling of information.
We found out that the Critical Incident Team
used an administrative subpoena
to illegally obtain the autopsy report before anybody in law enforcement had it.
And then, Border Patrol CIT team members used that document
to begin to construct...
a story around the event
for investigators from other agencies...
that would support the idea that it was an appropriate and legal use of force.
At that point in time, I was under the belief
that Mr. Hernández-Rojas lost his life, in part,
because he had ingested large amounts of methamphetamine.
It was years later,
that I learned that what had been identified
as methamphetamine in the autopsy report,
was possibly medication that had been administered to him
while efforts were being made to revive him.
It has to be said that many agents
are caring persons who execute their always difficult mission
in a way that is humane...
but, unfortunately, many do not.
And that includes persons at the highest level of Border Patrol leadership.
Absolutely not, I've seen those same allegations.
They were not--
There's no cover-up in that case whatsoever.
Again, there were multiple agencies that investigated that case.
I was just asked about some of the subpoenas recently.
They're all reviewed by multiple levels of lawyers
before we ever do anything like that.
It was literally just documenting exactly what happened.
But I'm not gonna comment with ongoing litigation
about was every single person's actions appropriate or not appropriate.
That's what the investigative organizations are there for.
Even as a chief here,
I stayed off to the side of that investigation,
we provided information, we provided interviews,
but I stay out of the determination
of whether it was appropriate or not appropriate.
Every time anybody dies or anybody gets serious injury,
it weighs on me heavily,
but those are allegations that you just stated.
For the many families who are listening,
the Border Patrol cover-up unit is a crime unto itself.
They took lives and they took hope,
and that cannot stand.
We are here to send a clear message that no one is above the law,
that even if you wear a badge, you too are subject to the law.
We are asking to send a clear message
that this can no longer happen,
and we are asking the question, who will control Border Patrol?
After months of criticism, the Biden administration
is eliminating Critical Incident Teams within the U.S. Border Patrol.
They are getting rid of their special units,
which have been accused for decades of covering up
crimes committed by the agency.
Today is a day to remember.
We know of no other agency in the U.S. government
that gets away with what this agency gets away with,
and we could all see with our own eyes,
today was a victory...
but it won't be the last.
This week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
will hear for the first time ever
a case against a U.S. law enforcement agency.
Attorneys say this will be a landmark case.
A future decision could set a precedent for use of force
within the nation's largest law enforcement agency.
Honorable commissioners, U.S. law and CBP policy
permits acts of force that would be considered
excessive under Inter-American standards.
We request that the Commission instruct the United States
to amend use of force laws and policies
for violations of the American Declaration,
including Articles 1, 2, 18, 25, and 26.
Alright, so...
we're gonna talk about international human rights law.
This is a case about impunity at the border
and it's a case about all the ways government officials
covered up the truth.