EL PASO, Texas, Aug. 18 (UPI) -- The parents of a Mexican teenager shot and killed by a U.S. border patrol agent have no grounds in U.S. law to sue the government, a federal judge says.
Senior U.S. District Judge David Briones threw out the lawsuit filed by Maria Guadalupe Guereca Betancour and Jesus Hernandez, the El Paso (Texas) Times reported. Briones found in a ruling Aug. 11 that U.S. law did not apply because Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, 15, of Juarez, was on the Mexican side of the border when he was killed, court documents said.
Someone in Mexico used a cellphone to film the shooting June 7, 2010. Court documents said Jesus Mesa Jr., a U.S. Border Patrol agent, fired at a group of Mexican boys who began throwing rocks at him after he took one of their friends into custody.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the death "extremely regrettable" last year and said the FBI was determining whether civil rights laws were violated. The family has asked Mexico to charge Mesa with murder, but legal experts say his extradition is unlikely, the newspaper reported.
