Mexican assualts on border agents

AP:

Border Patrol agents are firing tear gas and powerful pepper-spray weapons across the border into Mexico to repel what the agency says are an increasing number of attacks by assailants hurling rocks, bottles and bricks.

The counteroffensive has drawn complaints that innocent families are being caught in the crossfire.

"A neighbor shouted, 'Stop it! There are children living here," said Esther Arias Medina, 41, who on Wednesday fled her Tijuana, Mexico, shanty with her 3-week-old grandson after the infant began coughing from smoke that seeped through the walls.

A helmeted agent on the U.S. side said nothing as he stood with a rifle on top of a 10-foot border fence next to the three-room home that Arias shares with six others.

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The Border Patrol says its agents have been attacked nearly 1,000 times during a one-year period.

The agency's top official in San Diego, Mike Fisher, said agents are taking action because Mexican authorities have been slow to respond. When an attack happens, he said, American authorities often wait hours for them to come, and help usually never arrives.

"We have been taking steps to ensure that our agents are safe," Fisher said.

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U.S. officials say the violence indicates that smugglers are growing more desperate as stepped-up security makes it harder to sneak across the border. The assailants try to distract agents long enough to let people dash in the United States.

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I think US Attorney Johnny Sutton shares some of the responsibility. His prosecution of the border agents for shooting a drug mule sent a message to the Mexicans on the border that border agents would be prohibited from using lethal force. This emboldened many into intifada type action. Mexico could stop this by posting its own police at the places where the thugs gather. If nothing else, they should do it to protect the people who live in the area from reprisals. Hat tip Blue Crab Boulevard and Larwyn.