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Border Patrol Accused Of Teaching Children To Shoot At Human-Shaped Targets Made To Look Like Immigrants
BY REBECCA LEBER ON FEBRUARY 5, 2014 AT 9:00 AM
Controversial photographs from a recent Border Patrol event show agents teaching children to aim and shoot a paintball gun at a human-shaped target. Immigrant activists have accused Border Patrol of using this activity to encourage children how to shoot immigrants in an area where migrants have died.
The target is dressed to resemble a migrant and is located within 100 feet from Virginia Avenue where actual persons have been killed by Border Patrol gunfire, Immigrants Rights Consortiums Pedro Rios said, according to NBC San Diego News. While encouraging children to use guns to shoot at a migrant effigy is unconscionable, it is also symbolic of the agencys unabashed culture of violence which has grown from a lack of accountability, oversight and unprofessional standards that rebuke best practices in situations involving use-of-force.
Border Patrol claims it is standard practice to use targets dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. It denies, however, that the target was meant to look specifically like an immigrant, and said the activity was meant to create awareness about law enforcement tools used to address some violent situations without the use of deadly force.
The photos in question are from an activity at the event that allowed members of the community to fire a pepper ball launch system that had been loaded with inert rounds filled with a baby powder-type substance to be able to see whether the intended target had been hit, a spokesperson said. The target is a standard practice used by law enforcement and even amateurs throughout the U.S., and is clothed in plain jeans and a t-shirt, also standard when conducting exercises/demonstrations.
Local activists maintain the activity was insensitive, especially at a time Border Patrol is under scrutiny for deadly force in suspicious circumstances. Since 2010, border patrol has killed more than 20 people. One was a 16-year-old Mexican boy who was throwing rocks at the fence. Today, Customs and Border Protection has refused to curb its policy to use deadly force against rock-throwers, defying recommendations to reconsider.
http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/02/05/3240431/border-patrol-children-targets/
Bennyboy
(10,440 posts)SUIT UP! No more baggy pants and TShirts! Down with the skater kicks!
yes siree, let's get some Brooks Brothers going on. Wing Tips! You wanna come to America then try to fit in!
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Look at the ages of those kids.
Why woud you teach any kid to shoot at a human target?
What ever happened to bulls eye targets?
And why is the Border Patrol teaching kids to shoot at humans?
And why are their parents letting this happen?
RC
(25,592 posts)What is really going on is teaching us that we don't need nice stuff because we are all just targets for various nefarious ideals of others.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)kids as young as 6 are posed by their "first deer" and the pic is always in the newspaper.
Occasionally the kid will be a girl, most often it is a boy ( white, of course) dressed in camo with a huge grin.
I have never inquired too closely as to how a 6 year old killed a deer while hunting with daddy.
but the pic...the event..is a rite of passage down here.
sarisataka
(18,580 posts)But I would find this disturbing for any age. In the military there were times we used very realistic targets but they always had a weapon.
I suppose it is possible to quibble over whether this target looks like an immigrant or is generic but in any course of fire I have seen, this would be a "don't shoot" target.
To have very young children doing this is mind boggling.
MineralMan
(146,285 posts)I don't care how they're dressed. The fact that they represent humans is the problem.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)but that is not what's going on here. The time for learning how to shoot in self-defense against ANY threat is when kids AND adults can comprehend such. Having a human target at this age (as it appears) is irresponsible.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Heywood J
(2,515 posts)Looks like the Middle East...