Anastasio Hernandez Rojas screamed in agony as U.S. border agents rained blows on him and delivered 50,000 volts of electricity to his body over and over.
"No! No! Ayuda!" the 42-year-old Mexican wailed, pleading for help in Spanish. "Ayudenme [help me]!"
It was late in the evening of May 28, and his cries could be heard throughout the San Ysidro border-crossing area dividing San Diego and Tijuana.
Witnesses said that Hernandez Rojas was facedown on the ground, his arms handcuffed behind his back. Three agents were piled on top of him, one driving his knee into Hernandez Rojas' back, another pushing his knee into the deportee's neck. Other federal agents were kicking the father of five on each side of his body.
His chilling cries for mercy caught the attention of pedestrians on a nearby bridge that leads to Tijuana.
"Ya! Por favor! [Please, enough!] Señores! Ayudenme! Ayudenme! Por favor!" Hernandez Rojas is heard sobbing between his broken screams.
"Noooo!" he wailed. "Noooo! Dejenme! [Leave me alone!] No! Señores!"
Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection said after the beating that Hernandez Rojas became combative when agents removed his handcuffs.
They said he fought with agents, who used a baton to try to subdue him. When that didn't work, they used a Taser. After agents stun-gunned him, federal officials said, he stopped breathing, and agents tried to revive him using CPR.
The border agents' account of that night is markedly different from ones shared by witnesses who gathered around the fenced walkway used by the Border Patrol to deport immigrants to Mexico.
Humberto Navarrete, a young San Diego man, was among the witnesses who watched and listened in horror. He pulled out his cell phone and started recording the scene — never imagining he was filming the final moments of a man's life.
The 2½-minute video he captured is grainy and dark (see it attached to this article at www.phoenixnewtimes.com), but the sounds of Hernandez Rojas' begging for his life are clear.
Navarrete called out to two agents who had just driven up to the port of entry: "Hey! He's not resisting. Why are you guys using excessive force on him?"
One of the new arrivals told Navarrete he didn't know what was going on. But even as Hernandez Rojas cried miserably in the background, the agent said, "Obviously he's doing something. He ain't [. . .] cooperating."
To Navarrete, it defied logic that a Border Patrol agent who had not witnessed what was going on could conclude that these were the screams of an uncooperative immigrant.
Navarrete called out again, this time loudly to the agents pummeling Hernandez Rojas: "He's not resisting, guys. Why are you guys pressing on him? He's not even resisting! He's not even resisting!"
A woman yelled in Spanish through the fence at the agents: "Leave him alone already!"
As the crowd grew increasingly uneasy, agents picked up Hernandez Rojas by his arms and hauled him to a nearby spot behind some Border Patrol trucks.
Witnesses no longer had as clear a view, but they reported that federal agents poured out of the Border Patrol station. They could tell that about 20 gathered around Hernandez Rojas, who was again facedown on the ground, still in handcuffs.
His cries, by this time, were faint.
Navarrete said he saw one of the agents gesture to his comrades, and they all stepped back. It didn't mean that agents should lay off Hernandez Rojas. It apparently was a warning to fellow agents to step back. The agent then pulled out his stun gun and delivered electrical jolts to the restrained man.
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