By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Border Patrol agents are receiving inadequate training and poor screening, resulting in unnecessary use of lethal force, according to the former head of internal affairs at Customs and Border Protection.
James Tomscheck also said in a Supreme Court ruling that an agent should be held accountable for killing a Mexican teen, the Associated Press reports. The case involved the shooting of 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca in 2010.
A CBP spokesman declined to comment.
Tomscheck served as assistant commission of the CBP Office of Internal Affairs from June 2006 to June 2014, focusing on the oversight of use-of-force investigations.
“As security along the border has increased, criminal organizations seeking inroads into the United States have attempted to infiltrate the Border Patrol. And pre-hiring screening programs have been inadequate, leading the Border Patrol in some instances to hire actual cartel members as agents,” the brief, which also includes Tomsheck’s second-in-command, James Wong, states.
Tomscheck also wrote that the agency is becoming more militarized.
“Combined with inadequate field training on appropriate uses of force, these factors have led to an environment in which Border Patrol agents have unnecessarily employed lethal force on the U.S.-Mexico border,” the brief states.
