El Universal
January 02, 2006

TIJUANA - A young Mexican migrant shot just after crossing the border into the United States died in a hospital here over the weekend, the Baja California state attorney general´s office said.

Officials at the state Investigations Department said 18-year-old Guillermo Martínez Rodríguez was shot on Friday just a few meters inside U.S. territory but died Saturday in the Red Cross Central Hospital in Tijuana.


The attorney general´s office is investigating the shooting, which occurred just steps from the fence separating the two nations.


Local media reported that the young man may have been shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent, according to statements made by one of Martínez´s two companions who crossed the border with him.


Martínez was taken to the Tijuana Red Cross hospital on Friday night in a private car by two men, one of whom said he had helped the man get back over the border into Mexico after he had been wounded.


The victim had one gunshot wound in the right side of his chest, but authorities still have not determined where the gunfire originated or the caliber of weapon used.



Meanwhile, Baja California Gov. Eugenio Elorduy Walther said in a communiqué Saturday night that Border Patrol officials had arrived in Tijuana from Washington to investigate the matter.


"In no way is the use of a firearm justified in these cases, regardless of which side of the border is involved. We reject this type of attack, which in no way contributes to the relationship that must be maintained on both sides of the frontier," he said.

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