Who was Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez?

On October 10, 2012, Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, a 16 year-old Mexican resident was shot 10 times, 8 of which were in the back, by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agent Lonnie Ray Swartz. Although former agent Swartz alleges that Jose Antonio and friends were throwing rocks over the border wall into the U.S., the geographical location of the incident tells another story. Witnesses said Jose Antonio was just walking down the street.

The indictment of Lonnie Ray Swartz is the first time in the history of the country when an agent has been charged with a cross-border shooting.

The Family Sues

In July 2015, Jose’s family filed a civil suit against Swartz in U.S. District Court in Tucson. A U.S. District Court ruled that even though he was standing in Mexico when he was killed, he was entitled to protections of the Fourth Amendment. On March 2, 2020, the Supreme Court returned the cross-border shooting case to an appellate court in California, due to a recent ruling by the court to dismiss charges in a similar case, the Sergio Adrian Hernandez-Guereca case.

In April 2018, a jury found Lonnie Ray Swartz not guilty of second-degree murder, leaving his family still seeking justice for Jose Antonio's killing. Although Swartz is the first Border agent to be charged federally and prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice, no agent has ever been held responsible for fatal encounters with Border agents, which now total more than 300 since advocates first began documenting in 2010 and include U.S. citizens, children, women and men.