Woman Jailed After ‘Line Cutting’ At Port Of Entry

When a mother asked her son to hold her place in the pedestrian line at the Paso Del Norte bridge last week, she never imagined she’d spend the next six days in jail.

The woman claimed U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers used excessive force when they tackled her and shot her son with a Taser, but they said they were just doing their job.

CBP officers at the Paso del Norte bridge are often tasked with controlling the flow of pedestrian traffic. But Guadalupe Roa told ABC-7 they took things too far.

During an interview in front of her house on Wednesday, Roa hugged her two sons — all three are U.S. citizens — and said she knows she’s not guilty of assaulting a CBP officer. Roa this week pleaded guilty to a lesser crime and was sentenced to probation.

“All I wanted was to speak to an supervisor,” she said.

Roa said she was waiting in line to cross into the U.S. from Mexico. She and her son were in one line, and her other son was in the student line. When she noticed the line she and her son were in was moving faster, she called her other son to come over and join them. A woman standing behind her complained, and that’s when a CBP officer approached her.

“She grabbed me by the arm and I probably did this,” said Roa, jerking her arm as if to get loose.

But Roa said she never hit the officer.

Roa said the officers jumped on her and several other officers jumped on top of her and on top of her two sons.

Roa said one of her sons was shot with a stun gun after he yelled when he saw his mother get pushed to the floor.

“The cops shouldn’t have took me down. He should have held me,” 17-year-old Arturo Roa said.

The boys came out with several cuts and bruises, and Roa went to jail without bond for six days.

In a statement to ABC-7, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said, “Line cutting is not permitted. CBP officers are trained to use an appropriate level of response in order to maintain their safety as well as the safety of the traveling public.”