Border agent shoots and kills 14-year-old boy on US side of international bridge: report

"An emergency radio broadcast to El Paso police at 6:43 p.m. stated a Border Patrol agent had fired into a crowd of people."

LATEST: Updated AP story: "Agents detaining suspected illegal immigrants Monday came under assault from rock throwers across the border in Mexico, FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said." National Border Patrol Council president T.J. Bonner tells Associated Press that rock throwing incidents are "deadly force encounters" which "justifies the use of deadly force."

If oil and the mideast crisis weren't enough, a new breaking report is sure to stir up feelings on the also-still-simmering immigration debate again.

The Associated Press reports, "A US Border Patrol agent shot and killed a 14-year-old boy after a confrontation at an international bridge near downtown El Paso, Mexican authorities said Tuesday."

AP caption for photo: "Mexican federal police and forensic experts stand next to the body of 14 year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca, under the Paso Del Norte border bridge, as US officials watch from the US side at right, in Ciudad Juarez, northern Mexico, Monday, June 7, 2010. Chihuahua state officials released a statement Tuesday, June 8, demanding a full investigation into the death of the boy who was allegedly shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent after a confrontation, according to Mexican authorities."

The above photograph appears to show that the boy would have had to throw a rock a long distance and high enough to cross a fence to reach any border agents on the other side.

According to US Customs and Border Protection spokesman Doug Mosier, only one person was shot "Monday evening on the U.S. side of the Paso Del Norte bridge, across from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico."

The AP article notes, "Chihuahua State officials released a statement Tuesday demanding a full investigation into the death of the boy, identified as Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca."

"FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said she had no other details, including the whereabouts or condition of the suspect," the AP article adds. "Simmons said the agent wasn't injured [and] the FBI was leading the investigation since it involved an assault on an officer."

At the El Paso Times, Daniel Burunda reports, "U.S. authorities would not confirm if someone died, but Mexican news media reported a young man was dead. Some outlets showed photos of the body under the Puente Negro, or the Black Bridge, just west of the Paso del Norte Bridge."

"It started as an assault on a Border Patrol agent," said Special Agent Andrea Simmons, a spokeswoman for the FBI in El Paso. The FBI is the lead agency in the case because it investigates assaults on federal agents.

About 6:45 p.m., a Border Patrol agent was attacked before he fired his weapon, Simmons said.

Simmons said it had not been determined how many agents were involved in the confrontation nor how many attackers and whether they were armed or not.

"An emergency radio broadcast to El Paso police at 6:43 p.m. stated a Border Patrol agent had fired into a crowd of people," the El Paso report claims.

"The Border Patrol agent shot from El Paso, Texas, across the border into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico," CNN reports.