Witnesses: Agent shot unarmed man while pushing him to ground

BISBEE – Sandra Vidal, her husband Jorge Dominguez-Rivera, and Jorge`s two brothers, Rene and Francisco Dominguez-Rivera, were running south through the Arizona desert toward the international boundary line, hoping to make it back into Mexico before being overtaken by a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle they had seen nearby.

But 19-year-old Sandra was getting tired, she told investigators from the Cochise County Sheriff`s Office, and so, with the border only about 100 meters away, she slowed to a walk.

“She told Jorge she could not run anymore, and Jorge tried to encourage her that they were almost back to Mexico, and she could do it,” wrote Wendy Adney, a Sheriff`s Office detective, in the report of her interview with Sandra later that day, Jan. 12.

But Sandra couldn`t do it, and she told the others to leave her there and continue on.

Instead, the four illegal border-crossers slowed to a halt as the white SUV raced toward them.

“Sandra stated that the vehicle came directly at Jorge and Francisco,” Adney wrote after a series of follow-up interviews with the witnesses on Jan. 18. “Jorge jumped back, and put both hands up like he was giving up.”

The SUV came so close to the group, 24-year-old Jorge told investigators, that he thought its bumper might have made contact with Francisco`s leg or pant leg.

As the vehicle circled tightly around them, spinning its wheels and cutting off their path back to Mexico, the three surviving members of the group said they could see the driver, now known to be Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Corbett, pointing a gun, with his right hand, through a closed passenger-side window.

When the truck came to a stop, the four relatives gathered near its rear end.

“Rene, Jorge and Sandra all went down to their knees, and Francisco was still standing,” Adney wrote. “Rene stated that he grabbed Francisco`s jacket, pulled on it, and told Francisco to get down.”

Rene, 21, saw the agent coming at them quickly from behind the truck, and so he lay down on his stomach, still watching the agent approach.

Sandra and Jorge said they remained on their knees and watched as Corbett ran up to Francisco, pistol in his right hand, yelling a long, unintelligible phrase in English.

They saw Corbett strike or push Francisco on the back of the neck as he was beginning to crouch down. As Francisco fell toward his knees, he started to raise his hands in the air “like he was giving up,” Sandra said.

Sandra noticed a significant size difference between the two men, and documents in the case file confirm that the 39-year-old Corbett measures 6 feet 4 inches and weighs 265 pounds, while Francisco, 22, stood 5 feet 5 inches and weighed 155 pounds.

Jorge reported that Corbett then struck Francisco with his left hand, while Sandra and Rene recalled he had switched the pistol to his left hand before striking Francisco with his right.

However, the three witnesses all agreed that Corbett was holding his pistol in his left hand when he pushed Francisco toward the ground from behind and shot him in the left side of his chest.

“Jorge stated that after Francisco was shot in the upper left armpit area, (he) made an `ugh` sound and fell to the ground,” Adney wrote. “His eyes kind of rolled back and his tongue came out.”

Corbett then said something to Francisco, the witnesses said, but since he spoke in English, they weren`t sure what it was.

They believed he told him to get up.

The aftermath

The witnesses sat on the ground, watching, as Corbett transferred the gun back to his right hand before holstering it on his right side and making a radio call. Then he began looking through Francisco`s clothing, as if he were checking for a bullet hole.

A few minutes later, Stephen Berg, another agent who had been tracking the group, ran up.

Berg handcuffed Rene, Jorge and Sandra, and then started cutting off Francisco`s clothing, leaving his upper body exposed. Jorge watched, wishing he could help his brother.

He told the detectives that because of the way Francisco`s tongue was sticking out, he thought he needed oxygen, or that he was choking.

Eventually, Jorge saw that Francisco`s chest had stopped moving, and he assumed he had stopped breathing.

Adney and fellow Sheriff`s Office detective Ursula Ritchie asked the witnesses to describe Corbett`s demeanor during the incident.

“Rene stated that the agent that shot Francisco was aggressive, but after the second agent arrived, the first agent changed, like he was sorry,” Adney wrote. Ritchie added: “Rene said the second agent appeared more sad, since he saw tears coming from his eyes.”

Soon, more agents arrived, and the three family members were loaded into the back of another Border Patrol SUV.

“Jorge said that some of the agents who arrived later were laughing,” Ritchie reported. “Others were shaking their heads.”

Interviews and evidence

Corbett never spoke with investigators, and his attorney, Daniel Santander, has yet to comment on the case.

However, according to memos filed by some of the Border Patrol agents who responded to the scene, Corbett told them that he shot Francisco because he had threatened him with a rock.

Adney and Ritchie asked the three witnesses if anyone in their group had picked up a rock or made any threatening gestures. They all said no.

“Jorge explained that Francisco had been in the United States before, so he had told them about the laws and not to do anything stupid,” Adney wrote.

According to Jorge, Francisco lived in the New York area for four years before returning to the family home in Cuautla, in the south-central Mexican state of Morelos, on Dec. 3, 2006.

Evidence contained in the case file shows that Francisco had a Mexican consular ID card that was issued in New York City, and that he had a street address in Stamford, Conn.

Three Mexican men whom Corbett had detained just minutes before stopping the Dominguez-Rivera party were in the back seat of Corbett`s SUV when the shooting occurred. They told investigators that they heard, but did not see, Corbett fire at Francisco.

The Border Patrol agents` union has complained that Mexican consular officials were allowed to interview four of the six witnesses at the Naco Border Patrol station after the shooting, before sheriff`s and other investigators could conduct their interviews.

T.J. Bonner, the union`s president, told The Associated Press that the procedural misstep would explain why Sandra, Jorge and Rene`s stories “are in lockstep, because they could easily have been coached.”

However, in her Jan. 12 report, Adney wrote she and Raul Hernandez, an agent with the Border Patrol`s critical incident team, had already interviewed the three men in the back seat of Corbett`s truck and were in the process of interviewing Sandra when three officials arrived from the Mexican Consulate in Douglas.

The consular group waited in another room until the investigators were finished talking to Sandra, Adney reported. They were then given permission to speak to the four people who had already been interviewed.

The three eyewitnesses told the sheriff`s detectives that they talked with each other about what had happened, but did not discuss what they should or should not say.

They also denied that anyone had coached them on their stories.

Their accounts do not appear to conflict with other, non-testimonial evidence in the case, which includes an autopsy report, ballistics tests and a grainy surveillance video from a Border Patrol camera tower.

Sandra, Jorge and Rene have remained in the United States in Tucson as potential witnesses in any legal action against Corbett. 

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