A Good Shepherd’s Death by Military

REDFORD, Texas — There are two Rio Grandes wending past this lonely border town, one river that feeds the alfalfa banks and one river that mocks America’s war on drugs.

One river nourished Esequiel Hernandez Jr.’s goats. The other took his life.

Born inside his family’s adobe cottage, the shy, unassuming, 18-year-old high school sophomore seemed rooted in another time, more attuned to the ebb and flow of the murky waters than to the neon temptations that have lured away all but 100 of Redford’s souls.

Junior, as he was known, talked of becoming a park ranger or game warden. He was the only boy at the first meeting of his folkloric dance class. He combed the land on horseback in search of old coins and arrowheads, storing his treasures--along with a souvenir sword from the Alamo--in a locked box by his pillow. And then he had his goats, about 45 head, which he grazed every evening after supper, watching over them with a .22-caliber rifle that had been handed down from his grandfather to his father to him.

“That was his life, taking care of those little creatures,” said his father, Esequiel Hernandez Sr., a farm worker with a face the color of rusty earth.

Yet lurking behind the simple patterns of Junior’s world was a more dangerous tradition, the relentless tide of contraband across America’s southern frontier.

On a late May afternoon, just a few minutes after Junior ventured out with his flock, a squad of four camouflaged U.S. Marines on a covert anti-drug mission shot and killed the young shepherd--the first time in the long, quixotic battle against drugs that a U.S. citizen has been slain by his own military on U.S. soil.

The Camp Pendleton-based Marines, who were helping the Border Patrol stake out a reputed smuggling corridor near the Hernandez clan’s ranchito, do not allege that Junior was trafficking in narcotics--not then, nor at any other time. They say only that, for some inexplicable reason, he shot twice at them with his World War I-era rifle and was preparing to shoot a third time when one of them returned fire with a semiautomatic M-16.

“This was in strict compliance with the rules of engagement,” Marine Col. Thomas R. Kelly, deputy commander of the military’s anti-drug task force, told reporters after the shooting, describing it as an unfortunate but justifiable act of self-defense.

But to the many people touched by Esequiel Hernandez Jr.--an estimated 800 mourners trudged up a dirt road to Redford’s cemetery--his death was more than a tragic footnote on a volatile border.

They say it is inconceivable that the same boy who was still studying for his driver’s license exam, who was in the midst of a history report about the crime-fighting Texas Rangers, who had ridden in the Presidio Onion Festival parade with a white cowboy hat just 10 days earlier, knowingly could have fired at another human being. They believe his death was a murder, committed by troops trained for combat, not for the subtleties of a rustic Mexican American village.

Case to Be Sent to Grand Jury

“We were invaded, and one of our sons was slaughtered,” said the Rev. Mel LaFollette, a retired Episcopal priest in Redford who is helping residents prepare a class-action lawsuit against the federal government. “The whole community has been violated.”

Even Texas authorities have been harsh in their assessment of the Marines, who are allowed under U.S. rules to conduct surveillance but not make arrests or enforce civilian laws. Prosecutors in Presidio County, who plan to present the case to a grand jury next month, have blasted the military for impeding their investigation. The region’s top police official, Texas Rangers Capt. Barry Caver, has expressed concerns over unspecified “discrepancies” between the Marines’ version of events and the physical evidence.

“It’s a screwed-up deal,” Caver said. “Hopefully the truth will come out.”

Regardless of how the case is resolved, it has reinvigorated the long-standing debate over the use of American troops on American soil, a once-forbidden measure that has gained favor in recent years as a stopgap against the flow of drugs.

Military’s Role in War on Drugs

Given the vast quantity of narcotics smuggled across the border--as much as 70% of the cocaine in this country is transported through Mexico--federal authorities say it would be foolish not to use every weapon at the nation’s disposal. While mindful of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which bans military personnel from performing police functions, they insist that the military’s supporting role has helped level the playing field against an army of increasingly sophisticated traffickers.

“We give law enforcement an extra set of eyes and ears,” said Maureen Bossch, spokeswoman for Joint Task Force 6, the El Paso-based military unit that has conducted more than 3,300 domestic missions, including the one in Redford, at the request of the Border Patrol and other police agencies.

But critics, who are calling for “National Days of Reflection on the Militarization of the Mexico-U.S. Border” this weekend, contend that the armed forces have no business snooping around in a democratic society.

Sooner or later, as the Redford case illustrates, there is bound to be contact between troops and the public, whether they be law-abiding citizens or not. In either case, say border watchdogs, the odds of a violent confrontation are high. Unlike law enforcement officers, who must be cognizant of a suspect’s civil rights, military personnel aren’t required to identify themselves or issue warnings--if they encounter a threat, it can be readily neutralized.

“Whether or not the soldiers in the Redford case followed the rules of engagement or broke the law, the problem is the policy that put them there in the first place,” said Timothy J. Dunn, a University of Texas scholar and author of “The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978-1992.”

“If you deploy the military on the border, shootings like the one in Redford are almost unavoidable.”

Redford--originally known as El Polvo, or “dust”--would seem to be an unlikely setting for the drug war’s front lines.

Although authorities say that the town provides cover for smugglers, usually marijuana traffickers dealing in 100-pound loads, it is also hundreds of miles from a major city. It has no traffic signals, no gas stations, no restaurants, no motels--just a cluster of trailers and unpainted bungalows clinging to Farm Road 170 as it snakes past the olive-brown Rio Grande.

The Hernandez family settled here nearly three decades ago, building a ragtag compound of mud-brick huts near the river’s edge. Baling wire and twisted branches provide a corral for the animals, not just goats, but pigs and chickens and cows. Until a couple of years ago, drinking water had to be carted in by barrel. Entertainment is limited to one TV station and one radio station, both beamed in from Mexico.

But Junior--the sixth of eight children--never appeared to feel stifled by his surroundings, anxious to grow up with greater haste.

“He was very quiet, or timid, or old-fashioned, you might say,” said Rosendo Evaro, the 64-year-old owner of the Redford Convenience Store, who doubles as the town’s postmaster and school bus driver. “I never heard Esequiel say a bad word. He and his sister were the only kids who said ‘Good morning’ every time they got on the bus.”

On May 20, as he did every day, Evaro picked Junior up from Presidio High School--a 32-mile round trip--and dropped him off at home about 4 p.m. Junior ate a supper of beef and green beans. He studied his driver’s manual. At 6 p.m., his father reminded him to take out the goats.

Troops Hidden in Desert Scrub

Unbeknownst to Junior--or to the Hernandez family or to anyone else in Redford--four Marines, including a corporal identified by local officials as Clemente Banuelos, were just starting their vigil a few hundred yards away. For three days, they had been camped out clandestinely in the desert scrub, moving to an observation post each night near a low spot in the river. Their faces were streaked with green and black paint. Full-length suits of camouflage netting, transforming the Marines into human bushes, hung from their helmets to their boots.

“The whole goal of the military out there is to remain undetected,” said Bossch, the Joint Task Force 6 spokeswoman. “They’re not seeking to have any type of confrontation with anyone.”

If all had gone according to plan, the troops would have spent two weeks in this spot, keeping sentry over the Rio Grande with night-vision goggles. If they had detected any unusual activity--a truck trying to ford the river after dark or someone wading across with a heavy backpack--they would have radioed Border Patrol agents, who could have caught up with the suspects outside of town. At the end of the mission, the Marines would have left without a trace.

“We’ve had the military down there several times, in and around Redford, over the last few years,” said Joe Harris, an assistant Border Patrol chief for the region. “Nobody ever knows about it.”

But this time, something went wrong--”a tragic mistake,” as Harris put it. How it happened may never be known. Banuelos and the three other Marines have declined media requests for interviews. Ballistic tests on Junior’s rifle, to determine if or how many times it was fired, are not yet complete.

Some neighbors, who heard only one shot that evening, question whether Junior ever fired his weapon. If he did, they are certain that he never saw the Marines. He may have been shooting at a jack rabbit, or a tin can, or even one of the wild dogs that sometimes tormented his goats, but not at another human. “If there was only one truly innocent person on the whole border, it was that little kid,” said Redford native Enrique Madrid, 49, who provides archeological assistance to the Texas Historical Commission.

Investigators are inclined to agree. “I tend to doubt that he ever had visual contact with them,” said Caver, noting that the Marines, by design, were supposed to be invisible. If Junior did see them, he would have been looking at “four strangers, dressed up in all this regalia, out there in the middle of nowhere,” Caver added. “He wouldn’t have known if they were Marines or dope dealers or what they were. He could have been concerned for his own welfare.”

After the first two shots were allegedly fired at them, the Marines threw themselves to the ground in a “defensive posture,” according to military officials. As required, the Marines radioed the Border Patrol. But there were no Border Patrol agents in Redford. They were all at the Presidio station, where the night shift was just coming on duty. It would take at least 20 minutes for an agent to arrive.

Meanwhile, the Marines kept Junior in their sights. They followed him--or stalked him, depending on who’s doing the telling--for several hundred yards in broad daylight. No words were exchanged. They had no procedure or training for making contact with a civilian. Under their rules of engagement, they could do only two things: hide amid the greasewood and prickly pear or, if they perceived an imminent threat, respond with lethal force.

Junior, they allege, raised his rifle for a third time. The Marines were spread out in the brush, still a good 100 yards away. But Banuelos, according to authorities, apparently believed that one of his troops was about to be shot. He pulled the trigger once, striking Junior in the right of his rib cage.

By the time law enforcement officers arrived, there was nothing left to do but identify the body.

“I hurt so bad,” said 50-year-old Esequiel Sr., pulling a red bandanna from the back pocket of his tattered jeans and burying his face in the rag. “My son was just a boy.”

After the shooting, Border Patrol officials appeared nearly as troubled, publicly offering their condolences to the Hernandez family and the Redford community. They said that all military missions in the area had been suspended. Harris, the regional Border Patrol commander, vowed that if troops are used again, at least one of his agents would always be on the scene.

The Clinton administration wants to take matters a step further, beefing up the Border Patrol so that such military missions can be phased out altogether. A White House report, due to be released this fall, will call for a tripling in the number of Border Patrol agents over the next 10 years, from 6,200 to 20,000.

Eager to Be Free of Military Presence

But the people of Redford, while eager to be free of a military presence, question the philosophy of battling drugs on the border with any kind of armed force.

Although some communities along the Rio Grande have felt besieged by the Mexican drug cartels--and would welcome any relief--Redford is not one of them. Residents like to point out that the biggest trafficker in the history of their county was the sheriff, Rick Thompson, who received a life term in 1992 for conspiring to smuggle more than a ton of cocaine into the Presidio County Fairgrounds.

Given that most drugs come into this country via the major ports of entry--hidden in semi-trailers that blend into the sea of commercial traffic--why wage war in Esequiel Hernandez Jr.’s backyard?

“The Constitution is in shreds,” said LaFollette, 66, a colorful figure who graduated from Yale’s Theology School and appeared as an extra in the filming of “Streets of Laredo.”

He was standing in the exact spot where Junior fell, a clump of cactus now ringed by yellow police tape. Forming a circle on the horizon were Junior’s home, the whitewashed church where his body was blessed and the communal cemetery where he is buried under a mound of stones.

“Can you imagine such an atrocity happening in such a peaceful place?” asked LaFollette, his voice echoing in the silence, unbroken except by the faint gurgling of the Rio Grande.

Times researcher Lianne Hart contributed to this story.