The Hunt Was the Killing of a Migrant by a Former ICE Warden a Hate Crime or a Terrible Accident?
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On a balmy evening in far West Texas in late September, several Mexicans were fired upon by two white Americans. A man was hit and died at the scene; a woman was gravely wounded.
The shooting victims were part of a group of 13 migrants, including a 13-year-old girl. Many were kin and friends from a cluster of small farming communities in northern Mexico. Most were poor and wanted to immigrate to the U.S. to work and send money to their families. One was fleeing homicidal violence in Mexico that had already landed him in the hospital with bullet wounds.
They walked into Texas illegally and hiked for two days through mountains, desert, and arroyos. They planned to meet up with a driver who would take them into the U.S. interior. Just before reaching their pick-up spot, they happened upon a shallow body of water ringed by lush greenery and golden wildflowers. They were at Fivemile Tank.
In Texas, tanks can refer to ponds of water that ranchers maintain for their cattle and other livestock. All kinds of wild animals are also drawn to them, and sometimes so are people, especially near the border. The migrants were exhausted and thirsty. They walked to the water and crouched down to drink.
The migrants said they ducked into the brush after hearing a vehicle approach. They had been drinking from the west side of the tank, which is shaped roughly like a circle some 200 feet in diameter, when they heard the noise from a public farm road on the east side. In an affidavit written by an investigator with the Texas Rangers and later made public, the Mexicans said the driver then backed up, exited the truck, and laid a firearm on the hood. Then, according to the affidavit, one of the Americans yelled, in Spanish, the English equivalent of “Come out, you sons of bitches, little asses!”
The shooter fired twice. One shot hit Jesús Iván Sepúlveda, a young father, in the head; it proved fatal. The other tore into the gut of Brenda Casias Carrillo, a mother of three children.
A national uproar ensued, with civil rights advocates and politicians denouncing the shootings as attacks against immigrants — as murder, attempted murder, and hate crime.
READ FULL ARTICLE AND GREAT PHOTOS OF THE DESERT AROUND SIERRA BLANCA