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The Justice Department will not bring criminal charges in the death of a man from Mexico who was shocked by U.S. border authorities with a stun gun five years ago, federal officials announced Friday in closing their investigation.
The May 2010 death of 42-year-old Anastasio Hernández Rojas raised complaints of excessive force, including from the then-president of Mexico, and investigators from the Justice Department examined the case for evidence of a civil rights violation.
But federal officials said their review didn't find enough evidence to support a criminal prosecution. They said they accepted the agents' contention that the force they used was reasonable and necessary to restrain Hernández Rojas when he was "noncompliant and physically assaultive."
The altercation began as Hernández Rojas, who officials said had been caught coming into the U.S. illegally, was being returned to Tijuana, Mexico through the busy San Ysidro border crossing.
According to the Justice Department, Hernández Rojas began fighting with the agents once his handcuffs were removed and struggled and kicked at them as they tried to restrain him. A Customs and Border Protection officer used a stun gun on him, after which his breathing slowed and he became unresponsive, federal officials said.
He died a couple days later after being removed from life support.
Autopsies show that Hernández Rojas suffered a heart attack during the confrontation, though heart disease, electric shocks from the stun gun and methamphetamine intoxication were all described as contributing factors, the Justice Department said.
A lawyer for the Hernández Rojas family didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.
To bring a federal civil rights case, the Justice Department would have had to have shown that the federal officers intentionally deprived Hernández Rojas of his civil rights through using excessive force - a challenging legal standard.
"Neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation," the Justice Department said in a statement.
