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TUSCON, Arizona--The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that the parents of Sergio Hernandez, a 15 year-old Mexican teenager who was shot and killed by Border Patrol Agent Jesus Mesa on June 7, 2010, could sue Mesa in US civil court for alleged excessive use of force. This was a reversal of the initial judgment made in Mesa’s favor in the lower Western District Court in El Paso, TX.
Jesus Hernandez and Maria Guereca brought a total of eleven claims against the US government, Mesa, and several Border Patrol supervisors, according to the text of theAppeals Court ruling. The first seven claims were brought under the Federal Tort Claims Act, based on “multiple allegations of tortious conduct,” and the next two claims involved allegations that Hernandez’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights were violated. The key claim, however, was that Mesa was liable under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics through his “use of excessive, deadly force.”
