Word: hernandez
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...grand jury refused last week to indict Banuelos for shooting Hernandez, ruling that he had acted properly in defense of his fellow soldiers. But what remains unresolved--the question that has sent powerful tremors from the adobe-and-cinder-block foundations of Redford to the Defense Department in Washington--is whether the Marines should have been there in the first place...
...wake of the Hernandez shooting, the Pentagon suspended such military border operations on July 29. And despite the grand jury's exoneration of Banuelos, the patrols may be halted for good. "Is it fair to the Banueloses of the world--who joined the Marines knowing they may go fight in a war and die--that in the conduct of their duties they could end up spending their life in jail for murder?" asks a top Pentagon antidrug official. "We're giving this a real hard look now, and I don't think these kinds of missions will resume...
...Patrol catch drug smugglers. A Department of Defense entity called Joint Task Force Six, based in El Paso, Texas, has since 1989 coordinated 3,300 missions on the border; 746 of them involved listening or observation posts like the one Banuelos and three other Marines established several days before Hernandez was shot...
...enforcement agents. Moving stealthily about in camouflage gear, soldiers are under general orders not to identify themselves, not to fire warning shots and to respond to any perceived lethal threat under the military's "rules of engagement"--which means, roughly, shoot to kill. This is what happened to Hernandez, who had fired his weapon twice in the direction of the four Marines. Family members say Hernandez often carried a gun to fend off predators, and it is not clear whether he knew whom he was shooting at. However, Pentagon officials say Hernandez had been involved in an earlier incident...
...issue in the grand jury hearing was whether the Marines had followed the rules of engagement after they were shot at by Hernandez. Apparently they stalked Hernandez for 20 min. after those shots, keeping in close radio contact with their unit. It was only when Hernandez raised his rifle again and pointed it at Lance Corporal James Blood that team leader Banuelos fired. The Marines said they were devastated by the killing, which they insisted was an accident. "If there was any way to fix it, I would," said Blood. The grand jury evidently believed them, deciding that Banuelos...