In Border Patrol Shooting, Limited Details Emerge
The FBI has released the name and age of the man who was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents from the Sierra Blanca checkpoint last month, but declined to provide any additional information about the man or the bureau’s investigation into the shooting.
In comments to the Herald Tuesday (Feb. 3), Michael Martinez, media coordinator for the FBI’s El Paso office, said that the man who was shot and killed by agents in Hudspeth County on Jan. 22 was Tiano Meton, age 25.
The Hudspeth County sheriff’s department said after the shooting that the deceased was an African-American man with a criminal record in Albuquerque, N.M., in Bernalillo County.
Bernalillo County records include information for the name Tiano Melton. Records identify Melton as an African-American man, 25 years of age, who was booked into the Bernalillo County jail Dec. 3, 2014 on charge of distributing marijuana and tampering with evidence.
Martinez said he could neither confirm nor deny the Hudspeth County sheriff’s department’s description of the deceased man. And in comments to the El Paso Times, he said the last name of the man killed in the incident was Meton, not Melton.
In the Jan. 22 incident, Meton is said by the Border Patrol to have driven straight through the agency’s checkpoint on Interstate 10 near Sierra Blanca – and then to have “fled the checkpoint at a high rate of speed.”
Agents from the checkpoint pursued the man east on I-10 for about 30 miles, until his car apparently ran off the road near the Allamore overpass. Four agents approached the vehicle, the Border Patrol said, and as they neared the vehicle one of them yelled “gun!” Two agents fired their weapons, and Meton was killed.
The Border Patrol said that a “pistol-shaped pellet gun was recovered from the individual’s vehicle.” Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, who arrived shortly after the shooting, said that it appeared the man had pointed the pellet gun at the agents. The Border Patrol declined to say whether contraband was found in the vehicle, but West said the vehicle contained a small amount of marijuana, “like it was for personal use.”
The FBI has taken the lead on investigating the incident. Martinez declined to provide any information on the investigation, including if or when the bureau might release any findings.
The Jan. 30 Herald article reporting on the shooting indicated that, under Border Patrol protocol, agents do not pursue motorists who fail to stop at checkpoints, but rather contact the local sheriff’s department of highway patrol to conduct that pursuit. In that article, a Customs and Border Protection spokesperson was quoted as saying that the agents had not pursued but had only “followed” the vehicle in the Jan. 22 incident.
This week, a CBP spokesperson said that in fact agents are authorized to pursue motorists who do not stop at checkpoints, though agents do contact local law enforcement for assistance. The spokesperson said that “high-speed flight from a checkpoint is a felony violation” and that the agents “had in fact engaged in a pursuit” in the Jan. 22 incident.