“Don’t Treat Us Like Animals:” Outrage Builds After Border Agent Kills Indigenous Guatemalan Woman

In Guatemala, family members are demanding justice for Claudia Gómez González, the 19yearold indigenous woman whom a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot in the head and killed last week in Texas near the U.S. border. Border Patrol initially claimed that the shooting occurred after an agent “came under attack by multiple subjects using blunt objects.” The original statement described González as “one of the assailants.” But later the agency changed its story, saying the agent opened fire after “the group ignored his verbal commands and instead rushed him.” However, a resident who lives near where the shooting occurred said she never heard the agent yell anything. The Guatemalan Consulate in Del Rio, Texas, is calling for an investigation into González’s death, criticizing the “violence and excessive use of force by the Border Patrol.” At the time of her death, González was headed to Virginia to reunite with her boyfriend. For more, we go to Houston, where we speak with Astrid Dominguez, director of the ACLU’s Border Rights Center. We also speak with Sarah Macaraeg, an awardwinning investigative journalist, in St. Louis, Missouri.

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