LAT: Violent Border Clashes Surging: Attacks on agents doubled

[DeepModem Mom]

Violent Border Clashes Surging
Attacks on American agents have doubled as tighter security on the U.S.-Mexico line spurs desperate smugglers to use fire, rocks and guns.

By Richard Marosi, Times Staff Writer


SAN YSIDRO, Calif. — Assaults against U.S. Border Patrol agents nearly doubled along the Mexican border over the last year as patrols cracking down on drug trafficking and migrant smuggling encountered increasing resistance — including the use of rocks, Molotov cocktails and gunfire.

At least 687 assaults against agents were reported during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up from the previous year's total of 354 and the highest since the agency began tracking assaults across the Southwest border in the late 1990s, according to Border Patrol officials.

Most assaults occurred near urban smuggling havens such as Nogales, Ariz., and Tijuana, but cross-border skirmishes took place from remote California deserts to the banks of the Rio Grande in Texas.

In many attacks, smugglers hurled softball-size rocks or fired high-powered slingshot devices loaded with marbles and ball bearings. Some tried to run over agents with vehicles.

In some cases, smugglers and migrants fought with agents and tossed wooden pallets to block their pursuers. Dented and damaged vehicles, windshields shattered, sat in Border Patrol parking lots....


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-assault31oct31,0,2535221.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[ixion]

1. thanks, BushCo, thanks 'Minutemen' part deux

for making 'Murika safer... NOT! :grr: