The highest of our courts has had its say in the case of Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca and found that his parents have no right in this country to sue over his killing by a border control agent who shot him twice him from across the border, killing him in Mexico. The case was Hernadez v. Mesa. A second, similar case involving a cross border killing in which a child was shot sixteen times was also decided in the same way by the court.
The boy was fifteen, and it is said he had been playing a game in which he ran across a cement culvert to touch the border fence and then run back. A video taken at the time apparently shows him throwing pebbles at the agent, but I can’t locate a copy online and am not sure I want to witness him being shot in the face. For the record, the Justice Department found there was insufficient evidence to charge the border patrol agent with any crime.
The five justice majority called the incident tragic, but then devolved into rationalizations of national security and diplomacy, neither of which topic will ever offer solace to the child’s parents.
For any who might think this post is a screed against the current Administration’s immigration policies, this particular killing took place in 2010, during the Obama years. Separating families and housing children in conditions where some have died deserves its own condemnation, but I’ll save that for another day and time.
I spent the past few days trying to process the result of this case, until I realized something like it happens all too often here within our borders, which is equally unthinkable but true. In working through my dissonance I put these lines on paper, to express my feelings. I respect your right to reasoned disagreement, but when all is said, my thoughts land here.
He Had a Name
A Mexican boy of 15
Sergio
playing at the border
Adrián
shot in the face
Hernández
for throwing pebbles
Güereca
at a border agent
He had no rights here
Jesus Hernandez
or his parents to sue
Guadalupe Guereca
found the courts
And some here ask
Michael Brown
in our land of the free
Trayvon Martin
why this is news at all
Tamir Rice
where young blacks
Cameron Tillman
are shot by police
Laquan McDonald
so often now
Jordan Edwards
we forget
Samuel Mallard
their names
Kwame Jones
De’von Bailey
JaQuavion Slaton
Brandon Weber
Wiley McCoy
D’ettrick Griffin
Ramarley Graham
Kendrec McDade
Tony …
