An illegal immigrant from Mexico shot and killed while in custody in Texas allegedly first charged at Border Patrol agents with an “edged weapon” after escaping a holding cell, FBI El Paso said Wednesday.
Manuel Gonzalez-Moran, a 33-year-old Mexican national previously deported twice before following a violent crime conviction in Colorado, was encountered alone by U.S. Border Patrol agents and brought to the Ysleta Border Patrol Station in El Paso on Tuesday to be processed for illegal re-entry.
“Once at the station, Moran later charged out of a holding cell past an USBP Agent and grabbed an edged weapon off a desk in the processing area,” FBI El Paso said in a statement obtained by KFOX14. “Agents provided verbal commands and attempted to gain control by utilizing non-deadly force methods, specifically taser, which was unsuccessful. Agents continued providing verbal commands. However, Moran continued to advance upon them with the edged weapon at which time he was shot by Agents.”
Border patrol agents provided immediate medical attention until EMS arrived at the scene, according to the FBI, and Moran was transported to Del Sol Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
TEXAS NATIONAL GUARDSMAN DIES BY SUICIDE AT SOUTHERN BORDER POST
The Washington Post reported that the edged weapon was a pair of scissors.
When Moran was initially picked up by border patrol agents, he was carrying a metal pipe in his hand but initially “complied with Agents” and was taken into custody and brought back to the station, the FBI said.
In 2011, Gonzalez-Moran was arrested in Colorado by the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office on a charge of attempted first-degree murder. He was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon resulting in seriously bodily injury and was removed from the U.S. to Mexico in 2012. The FBI said Gonzalez-Moran was caught attempting to illegally reenter the U.S. in March of this year but was deported back to Mexico.
The Mexican Consulate in El Paso said the man fatally shot at the Ysleta Border Patrol Station was a Mexican citizen who was being processed at the station when criminal charges against him were discovered, according to the Associated Press. It’s not clear if those were pending new charges.
The shooting happened days after two migrants were shot, one fatally, while reportedly getting water along the U.S.-Mexico border in rural Hudspeth County, about 90 miles east of El Paso.
In that case, two Texas brothers — including one who had been a warden at a detention center that has housed immigrants — were arrested and charged with manslaughter. Both the man killed and the woman wounded in that incident were also from Mexico, according to the Mexican consulate.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
