Thursday, November 8, 2012

Outrage in Texas After Airborne Police Sharpshooter Kills 2

By Manny Fernandez, New York Times
November 4, 2012

LA JOYA, Tex. — As a red pickup truck believed to be carrying drugs raced down a rural road near this border town last month, a state police helicopter that joined the pursuit warned units on the ground to keep their distance.

.“Going to try to shoot one of the tires out,” a member of the helicopter crew announced, in radio communications broadcast by the television station KRGV. “We have a clear spot.”

An officer with a high-powered rifle in the helicopter opened fire, but after the truck came to a stop, the authorities discovered that the sharpshooter had made a tragic mistake. The truck’s cargo was not drugs but people. Illegal immigrants from Guatemala being smuggled across the border had been hiding in the bed of the truck, covered by a dark blanket. Two of them were killed by the sharpshooter from the state’s top law enforcement agency, the Department of Public Safety. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/us/outrage-in-texas-after-airborne-police-sharpshooter-kills-2-immigrants.html?ref=us&_r=0

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