CNN Guest Column: UTEP Professor Calls Border Killing Symbolic Of Failed Policy

Tony Payan, an associate professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso, has written a guest column for CNN.com regarding the recent shooting death of a Mexican teen by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Payan teaches border studies, Mexican politics and U.S.-Mexico relations on the U.S.-Mexico border.

On Monday, a U.S. Border Patrol officer shot and killed a 14-year-old boy, Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, under one of the international bridges that connects or, these days, divides, El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Jurez, Chihuahua.

The boy lay dead on the Mexican side and the Border Patrol agent was removed from the scene by U.S. officials. American officials say it was a case of self-defense. Mexican authorities condemned the killing as the use of excessive force.

The facts are still coming out, but based on the English and the Spanish news reports, it is easy to see that the two sides do not agree on the particulars, much less on their interpretation.

Read the full column here