Illegal Immigrant Trying to Cross Border Attacks Officer Stopping Him, Released, Attacks Another Officer Three Days Later
Jim Watson, AFP, November 29, 2017
Two weeks ago, an illegal immigrant trying to enter the United States via the San Ysidro Port of Entry, assaulted two officers from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations in two separate incidents which occurred three days apart after authorities didn’t arrest him following the first attack.
On November 13, Juan Carlos Perez-Medina, 34, tried to cross the border. He gave the officer who stopped him papers acknowledging he was denied entry in June, 2015, as Blue Lives Matter reports.
When Perez-Medina started pacing, Field Operations officer Jose Chavez approached the first officer. He started examining the deportation paperwork, prompting Perez-Medina to bash his head with his cell phone, breaking the officer’s sunglasses and cutting his head and face.
The officers could not arrest Perez-Medina as the incident happened only a few feet from the “limit line” back into Mexico, and he had immediately fled back across it.
On November 14, Perez-Medina tried to cross the U.S. border again; multiple officers recognized Perez-Medina and took him into custody. But U.S. authorities did not press charges against Perez-Medina, and so he was sent back to Mexico the very next day.
Then, on November 17, Perez-Medina tried to cross the border for the third time; Blue Lives Matter explains:
The officers asked Perez-Media what they could do for him, and he became angry and walked back across the line into Mexico. Then he returned to the U.S. side of the line, and taunted and threatened the officers. “Did you f**king call me?” Perez-Medina yelled, twice. Then he told the officers “I’m going to come back and kill you.”
An officer identified as “Officer R.S.” in the complaint saw Perez-Medina coming at him, and put up his hand and told him to stop. Perez-Medina “lunged and jumped at [Officer R.S.] with a closed right fist and struck him in the right eyebrow and temple,” according to the complaint provided to Blue Lives Matter by the San Diego U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Perez-Medina was arrested and charged with felony assault on a federal officer.
As Blue Lives Matter writes, “If authorities had charged Perez-Medina with assault on Officer Chavez Nov. 13, he would have been locked up on Nov. 15, and never would have had the opportunity to assault Officer R.S. two days later.”
