US border police brutality

[Ivo Skoric]

*3. BORDER CROSSER DIES AFTER BEATING

A Mexican couple has filed a complaint with the Mexican consulate
in Nogales, Arizona, charging that their 25-year old son,
Francisco Javier Platt Medina, died from injuries received at the
hands of the US Border Patrol. Platt died on July 6, a week after
the Border Patrol arrested him and returned him to Mexico. An
autopsy showed he died of liver and kidney failure, and that his
midsection was covered in bruises. The Mexican consulate has
asked the DHS Office of the Inspector General to investigate.

According to the complaint, Medina was drunk when he climbed the
border wall into the US late on June 29. He was accosted by a
Border Patrol agent and resisted arrest. Medina was shot with a
pepperball gun, sprayed with pepper spray and beaten and kicked,
his mother told the consulate. Medina was treated that night at
the Holy Cross Hospital emergency room in Nogales, and the
Nogales Fire Department took him to the border the next morning.
Medina was taken to a hospital in Mexico, then sent home. After
he complained of pain, his parents took him to another hospital,
where he died after being put on dialysis. [Arizona Daily Star
(Tucson) 7/11/03] [[CHRI] Immigration News Briefs 7/12/03]