U.S. Citizen Dies At California Mexico Border Crossing After Being Shot With Stun Gun

A 40-year-old U.S. citizen was shot with a stun gun at the San Diego border crossing. The man later died after border control officers were unable to revive him with CPR.

According to NY Daily News, the 40-year-old man was crossing into San Diego from Mexico on foot. When he entered the border crossing, he was questioned by border control officers. The man was taken to another room for further questioning, at which point he attacked the border patrol officer. The agents were unable to subdue the man, so they used a stun gun. The border agents immediately provided CPR to the man, but they were unable to revive him at the scene. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

The New York Times reports that “the man jumped over a counter Wednesday night and attacked an inspector after being escorted to a separate area for questioning at the San Ysidro port of entry between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, the police said.” The man was being taken for further questioning after a check showed the man was wanted on felony charges.

Police report that heroin was also found on the man when a body search was performed. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the man was “combative” and attacked two inspectors after being held for approximately four hours. Police and border agents have not released the man’s name as family has not yet been notified.

The San Ysidro port of entry is the highest traffic border crossing in the United States. In fact, approximately 50,000 motorists and 25,000 pedestrians enter the United States daily through the bustling San Diego crossing. To put that in perspective, that is more than all the people that travel through the two busiest airports in the nation daily – Miami and New York’s John F. Kennedy airports.

Though the U.S.-Mexico border is the focus of most border crossing issues, a man was shot earlier in the week at the U.S.-Canada border crossing. Early Sunday morning, a male Canadian citizen approached the border control agents at the Detroit, Michigan, border crossing. The man approached border agents wielding a gun, and was subsequently shot by agents and taken to a nearby hospital. He recovered in the hospital and has since been taken into U.S. Department of Homeland Security custody for evaluation and questioning. Police on the Canadian side of the border in Windsor say they also had a confrontation with the man just 20 minutes before the bizarre border crossing confrontation.