Newly Released Video Shows Border Patrol Shooting Man Who Called Authorities for Help
Agents claimed to see a gun that wasn't there. Video reveals nervous officers with a hunting mentality.

Last month, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents shot and killed Raymond Mattia, a man of the Tohono O'odham Nation from Menagers Dam near the American side of the Arizona-Mexico border, after he had, according to his sister, called authorities for help after he was alarmed by what he thought were illegal immigrant trespassers on his property.
An edited presentation of agent bodycam video has now been released. The agents claim they believed Mattia to have a gun on him, though he did not. After reporting on the incident from The Intercept, it is not clear whether they were directly responding to Mattia's call, as The Intercept reports Tohono O'odham tribal authorities had called in the Border Patrol with reports of shots having been heard fired in the area.
The clip cobbles together various perspectives from various agent's bodycam of the approach and murder. At least one of them is clearly already in a nervous, aggressive, hunter mindset. He thinks he saw someone moving on the periphery near Mattia's home before Mattia himself is in sight, at around 10:35 on the video. (An agent is already discussing "shooting the fucking lock off" on a building they are circling.)
I personally am not sure what he saw, if anything. Still, given how Mattia did approach the agents, and that he had called for the help of the law in the first place, I wouldn't be quick to presume that what the officer saw or thought he saw was him, or anyone or anything of significance to the officers.
But the officer already considers this person or imagined person "this motherfucker," and he's angry as he runs toward what he thinks he might have seen. By the time the officer and his fellow agents do have Mattia in sight (around 12:00 on the video), the Border Patrol agent is approaching the experience like he was tracking the quarry and now has found it.
The agents see Mattia, shout at him to put his hands up and to "put that down" and take his "hands out of his fucking pocket." He does both, first tossing his sheathed knife away as he's shouted at. Within about 16 seconds of the first verbal command to put his hands up, the agents open fire as Mattia's hands leave his pocket and start going up.
The agents do, to their credit, begin trying to give emergency medical care to Mattia quickly enough, all the while continuing to shout about finding and securing the gun that did not exist. One officer is sure he's still holding a gun after he's on the ground shot. The only thing apparently on him was a cell phone.
They continue shouting commands about hands up and the like after he's on the ground bleeding to death, warning him he'll get shot again if he doesn't somehow obey their commands about his hands, although all he's doing is lying there on the ground dying. They cuff him. The video does not reveal any verbal realization on their part that there was no gun and what their reaction, if any, to that sinking in might have been. (Unless they are great actors, they seem to believe a gun was in Mattia's hands.)
But the officers remain in a pugnacious mindset. Mattia did, at their shouted command, very visibly toss away the only weapon he had, a sheathed hunting knife. One agent refers to that action as "he threw the machete at us."
An agent quickly identifies Mattia as not an illegal migrant but as "one tribal member hit multiple times."
The Intercept's detailed report on the incident after the video's release notes that "Late last week, a tensely awaited medical examiner's report ruled the case a homicide, finding that Mattia was shot nine times."
"The case is still under investigation, with the participation of the Border Patrol's parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, as well as the FBI and the Tohono O'odham Nation," The Intercept reported. "Of the 10 Border Patrol agents involved in the incident, three opened fire, CBP has said. Those agents are currently on administrative leave."
The Intercept quotes Mattia's niece, Yvonne Nevarez, saying, "We feel after watching the video that he was trying to comply the best he could….If they're allowed to get away with this now, it's not going to stop."
Still, as discussed in earlier Reason reporting on the story, recent Supreme Court precedent will make it far harder for his family to get justice for this crime if that justice depends on holding federal agents to account legally for their misdeeds. As Reason's Billy Binion has previously reported in detail, the Court decided last June in Egbert v. Boule that immigration officials (the specific type of agent at issue in that case) can more or less violate citizens' rights at will without being held accountable via being directly civilly sued for the damages they did. By recently neglecting to take up two other cases in which citizens tried using courts to hold federal officials to account for violating their rights, the Court seems to think, as Binion wrote, that any variety of U.S agent enjoys "absolute immunity for committing transgressions while policing domestically."
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This is what asking for more border enforcement looks like.
As federal agents, these guys have complete immunity. Not qualified, but complete. They’re above the law. And their jurisdiction, as in “the border,” is everything within 100 miles of the border. That puts 200 million people under threat of these guys. That’s what you DeSantis fanboys are demanding.
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Less border enforcement is why this happened in the first place. None of this excuses the officers in the specifics of this incident, but when your lax enforcement creates chaos, don't be surprised if chaos ensues.
Less
borderdrug, prostitution, gambling, traffic offence, noise complaint enforcement is why this happened in the first place. None of this excuses the officers in the specifics of this incident, but when your lax enforcement creates chaos, don’t be surprised if chaos ensues.And before you come back with trespassing, tell me who is reporting it. Landlord, employer, store owner...?
You get a hard on when someone you don’t like gets shot in the back for trespassing.
The immunity only applies to civil actions not criminal.
Unfortunately criminal prosecution of federal officers is extremely rare.
Hey genius, how many people cross the border? How many people live on the border? 1 mistake right? Get rid of it all.
How about closing the border than you would have homeowners in fear, or drug dealers, or mules. But hey, open borders right?
What has Biden done? He's focused on Russia fighting Iraq
The only thing apparently on him was a cell phone.
For officer safety the government should force smartphone manufacturers to cease making products that look to jittery LEO exactly like handguns.
I think that's sarcasm, but if a cell-phone looks like a gun to you, _everything_ must look like a gun to you. The problem isn't the cell-phones, but hiring hysterics-prone cowards as police officers.
What he should have done to avoid being shot was lie down on the ground immediately. That way they could have suffocated him to death instead.
Cause of death: excited delirium.
shot and killed Raymond Mattia, a man of the Tohono O'odham Nation from Menagers Dam near the American side of the Arizona-Mexico border, after he had, according to his sister, called authorities for help after he was alarmed by what he thought were illegal immigrant trespassers on his property.
There's no such thing as an illegal human being. Good shoot.
The only good injun is a dead injun. So they have said, and so they will keep on sayin'! Just sayin'...
(Qualified immunity just keeps on giving and giving and giving! When are you or me or ANY of us peons gonna get ANY qualified immunity?!?!?)
I would be curious to know if this is the first person these officers have killed, and if not how many notches have they carved into their holsters.
A little part of me thinks, you know, if these LEOs were trespassing on my property at night... well, you know, my eyesight isn't 20/20, and I might mistake them, you know, for someone I don't want on my property... and who might be armed... you know... mistakes can happen. You know?
Luckily, it's a very small part of me, kept in check by something called common sense.
The sort of tragic incident where you accidentally shoot a LEO is not going to end as well as when the LEO accidentally shoots you. As a private citizen, you're held to a higher standard than someone sworn to enforce and uphold the law.
Indeed. So it seems.
Acknowledging that there wasn't a gun -- especially acknowledging it while being recorded -- would mean acknowledging that they were wrong to shoot him. And would be evidence that they knew they were in the wrong.
"It is very hard for a man to understand something, when his job (or freedom) depends on his not understanding it." Yes, that's not word-for-word of the original quote, but its should get the idea across.
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I've seen assertions elsewhere that this tactic is explicitly taught, but I do read a fair bit of tinhat stuff.
Never call the cops unless you want someone to get shot and you're somewhere around 50% okay with that person being you.
That is true.
As long as the good guys made it home to their families, right?
“I got another bad guy off the street tonight honey. Now let’s have a little wine and sleep the sleep of guilt-free, morally superior, legally exempt, enforcers of the status quo.”
Follow orders, get shot. Don't follow orders, get shot.
Don't call or trust LE. They are cogs in the bureaucracy and not on our side.
Justice for Mattia. His killers will walk because "muh badge".
Calling any US Law Enforcement for your help, a loved ones welfare check, or if you own a pet is dangerous to all their health.
For sound economic perspective please go to https://honesteconomics.substack.com/
I see a lot of police/border haters here.
How many here face drug dealers daily? What about pulling someone over? Domestic dispute?
Are the police perfect? Of course not, there are assholes. They shouldn't have immunity - agreed. But Reason and people here think they are all the enemy.
You know who doesn't have police killing people? Japan. Why? Because they culture has respect and rules. Here, everyone is a victim. Reason, like all media - the police are out there daily on a manhunt to shoot black people right? Whites get killed more by the police?
It's a dangerous job (with or with gun control). I'm sure everyone here will run and stop a shooter right?
It's not hard to not kill people that are following orders.
"I see a lot of police/border haters here."
Is this really the case where you want to swoop in and defend cops? Like, this specific case has got your Thin Blue Line defense instincts all afire?
This fucking case where they shot an unarmed man to death, the very guy that called them for help?
Really, you dipshit? Really?
" You saw it, he was coming right at us ! "
Qualified (or absolute in this case) immunity from civil suits is only part of the problem. The main problem is the DA's that should prosecute them see themselves as on the same side, and often become co-conspirators with criminal cops.
Restore the right of private prosecution. Allow citizens to call a grand jury, seek criminal indictments of government officials under the same rules as government prosecutors follow, prosecute them in front of a jury, and get reimbursed if successful. If that means many government officials are continually tied up in court, maybe they ought to change how grand juries are run so no one can indict a ham sandwich.