EL PASO By all accounts, Ezequiel Hernandez Jr. was a hardworking,
goodnatured youth who never caused trouble. A high school student who
had just turned 18, he was devoted to a goatraising project funded in
part by the Episcopal church in his border town of Redford, Tex. He
planned to be the first member of his Mexican immigrant family to go to
college and dreamed of becoming a wildlife officer or, perhaps, joining
the Marines.

Instead, Hernandez became a casualty of America's drug wars, the victim
of an upsurge of violence along the 2,000mile U.S.Mexican border that
has put residents and law enforcement officials on edge. While grazing
his goats on rolling, windswept ranch land near his home one evening
last month, he was killed by the leader of a heavily camouflaged Marine
patrol assigned to conduct surveillance of suspected drugtrafficking
routes into the United States.

The military insists the killing was in selfdefense, that Hernandez
fired a .22caliber rifle twice toward one of the Marines and was about
to shoot again when the squad leader felled him with a single round from
his M16 combat rifle. Hernandez's family and neighbors say they heard
only one shot, and that the Marine fired without warning in what
amounted to an ambush.

Although the incident marked the first time a U.S. citizen has been shot
by a member of a military surveillance team, it was preceded by other
shootings that have contributed to a sense of heightened danger along
the U.S.Mexican border. In most of these incidents, agents of the U.S.
Border Patrol, a branch of the Immigration and Naturalization Service,
have come under fire from suspected Mexican drug smugglers.

In this climate of violence, the latest incident has raised the question
of whether the shooting of Hernandez was an act of selfdefense or a
jumpy overreaction. Much about the case remains murky, and the question
may go to a jury. But the episode has cast a pall over the role of the
U.S. military in supporting federal antidrug efforts along the border.
Immediately after the shooting, the military's El Pasobased Joint Task
Force 6, which deploys small teams of troopers to help spot traffickers
in border areas, suspended operations in the sector that includes
Redford, a remote town of about 100 people west of Big Bend National
Park.

Human rights groups have strongly protested the killing as a tragic
example of what they call the "militarization" of the border, most
recently with a vigil in Washington last week. And outraged local
residents feel the Marines have added insult to injury by insisting they
acted in "strict compliance" with task force regulations. Aided by civil
rights and religious organizations, Hernandez's family and the local
community plan to file lawsuits.

"I don't understand it," said the youth's distraught father, Ezequiel
Hernandez Sr., a legal U.S. resident and father of seven other children.
"I want there to be justice."

An investigation by the Texas Rangers has found discrepancies between
physical evidence and the Marines' account of the incident and so far
has failed to confirm that Hernandez fired two shots from the rifle he
commonly carried to protect his goat herd from coyotes. A local
prosecutor, District Attorney Albert Valadez, says he will take the case
to a grand jury next month, a move that could lead to a trial of the
Marine squad leader in state court.

Under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the U.S. military is prohibited from
engaging in domestic law enforcement. But as part of the "war on drugs"
in the 1980s, the act's restrictions were loosened to allow military
units, including Army Special Forces, to help the Border Patrol by
conducting ontheground surveillance, intelligencegathering and
observation using advanced nightvision equipment. Friday, the House
moved to make up to 10,000 additional troops available to help stop
illegal immigration and drug smuggling along the border. The units are
barred from making arrests and may use weapons only in selfdefense. If
they spot drug traffickers, they are not supposed to confront them.

"We serve as the eyes and ears of the Border Patrol," said Maureen
Bossch, a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force 6. "The goal is to avoid any
contact with the civilian population."

For a while, violence along the border seemed to be abating. Federal
officials say reported assaults and "armed encounters" involving Border
Patrol agents dropped from 606 in 1992 to 274 in 1995, largely because
of new surveillance technology and deterrence measures that enabled
agents to avoid being surprised by large groups of illegal
bordercrossers, officials said. But the numbers began rising again last
year, spurred in part by a surge in drugtrafficking in certain sectors.

In January, a Special Forces sergeant shot and wounded a Mexican illegal
alien who had opened fire on him in a latenight encounter with a
military team along the Rio Grande near Brownsville. The Mexican later
pleaded guilty to assault and weapons charges and faces up to 15 years
in jail.

Near San Diego, three shootings in as many weeks have left a Border
Patrol agent slightly wounded and raised fears that Mexican drug cartels
are trying to force federal authorities to back off from their
moreaggressive border control efforts. Last month, a volley of rifle
shots fired from a car on the Mexican side struck a marked Border Patrol
vehicle near Imperial Beach, Calif., shattering the windshield and
wounding the agent in the head and shoulder. In two similar incidents
since then, agents patrolling the Goat Canyon area came under fire from
the same road and shot back as the assailants sped away.

In a letter to President Clinton, Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (RCalif.)
charged that the shootings were "nothing less than assassination
attempts against American officials" and part of "a regular pattern of
violent acts, which may be linked to Mexican drug cartels."

Along the 205mile Del Rio sector in Texas, federal officials say
attacks on Border Patrol agents increased nearly 200 percent the past
year.

In one recent incident in the sector near Carrizo Springs, Tex., four
suspected drugtrafficking guides overpowered a Border Patrol agent,
seized his gun and shot him in the back of the head, said Paul Berg, the
agency's chief in Del Rio. Miraculously, he said, the bullet passed
between the agent's skull and scalp. After playing dead until the men
drove off in his car, the agent managed to walk to a colleague's house
and was released from a hospital a few hours later. Three of the four
attackers were caught.

While the Border Patrol has borne the brunt of the violence, immigration
and customs inspectors also have come under attack. In April, two
customs officers in Calexico, Calif., were wounded when a 74yearold
Mexican pulled out a gun and opened fire after his van caught the
attention of a drugsniffing dog. The gunman was killed in the ensuing
shootout, and more than 100 pounds of marijuana were found in the
vehicle, customs officials said. It was against this backdrop of
violence that the incident involving young Ezequiel Hernandez Jr.
unfolded.

According to a Border Patrol spokesman in Dallas, the Marfa sector in
which Hernandez was killed is a "notorious area for drug smuggling." But
local residents said there has been little such activity in Redford, and
certainly none involving the lanky high school sophomore.

"You couldn't say enough good things about that kid," said the Rev.
Melvin W. LaFollette, 66, a retired Episcopal missionary who enlisted
the Hernandez family in a project to produce goat cheese in the area.
"He was universally liked and never caused any trouble." Quiet,
lawabiding and respectful of authority, he would never have tried to
take on four heavily armed men in uniform, especially not with an old
.22 rifle, LaFollette said.

He and local law enforcement officials said that if Hernandez did fire
his gun, he was probably shooting at a rabbit or other target and may
not have even seen the Marines. Although the incident occurred in
daylight, at about 6:15 p.m., the Marines' faces were blackened, their
bodies were covered in burlap and leaves, and they were apparently
spread out in crouching positions on the brushcovered land more than
230 yards from Hernandez, investigators said. The .22 rifle he carried,
a small model originally used in carnival shooting galleries, was at
least 80 years old, they said.

Joint Task Force 6 officials said the Marines were from Camp Pendleton,
Calif., but refused to identify the squad leader except as a
noncommissioned officer with three years of service. Hernandez was
shooting toward another Marine when the squad leader shot him from the
side, task force officials said. They said the Marines never shouted a
command or fired a warning shot because they were not required to do so
under the "rules of engagement" governing use of their weapons.

According to Capt. Barry Caver of the Texas Rangers, the Marines'
account of the shooting does not "exactly jibe" with autopsy and other
physical evidence, raising questions about whether the unit was acting
in selfdefense. "Our perception of what occurred is not consistent with
the military's version," another investigator said. "We have not been
able to corroborate that [Hernandez] fired two shots."

"These men came here like they were ready for an invasion," said Jesus
Valenzuela, who lives about 500 yards from the shooting scene and
insists he heard only one shot. "Why do they put us in the middle of a
war? It was a very big mistake. We're very disgusted." Fighting
drugtraffickers "is something for the police to do, not the military,"
he said.

"We're very remote and isolated here," said LaFollette, a former
university professor and published poet who moved to Redford in 1984.
"And we feel that something terrible has happened, something that
affects every citizen in the United States."

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company