The following article was published by URIEL J. GARCÍA from the Texas Tribune and Davis Winkie from Military Times on August 28, 2023. It was updated on August 31, 2023.
The Texas Military Department confirmed Friday the National Guard member who is accused of shooting across the Rio Grande and wounding a man was placed on paid leave.
A National Guard member on duty at the Texas-Mexico border in El Paso, who fired across the Rio Grande, injuring a 37-year-old Mexican man in Ciudad Juárez a week ago, has been placed on paid administrative leave, the Texas Military Department confirmed on Friday.
“The service member has been placed on paid administrative leave until the conclusion of the investigation,” a spokesperson for the military department said in an email on Friday.
Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a Wednesday night statement, that the National Guard member who shot “has been separated from his position until the investigation has concluded.” The statement added that the Consulate General of Mexico in El Paso has met with senior officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is now investigating the shooting.
“During the [Wednesday] meeting, the Mexican authorities reiterated that the Texas National Guard member’s action was inadmissible,” the statement said. “They also expressed their concern about the impact on the human rights and safety and integrity of migrants.”
On Thursday, The Texas Tribune asked officials with DPS and the Texas Military Department, which oversees the National Guard, to confirm the Mexican official’s statement. Neither agency responded to that request.
Earlier this week, the military department confirmed the shooting, but didn’t release any other information, such as the identity of the National Guard member or the reason why the member shot his weapon.
“On the night of 26 August, a National Guard Servicemember assigned to Operation Lone Star discharged a weapon in a border-related incident,” a spokesperson for the military department said in a statement. “The incident is under investigation. More information will be made available as the investigation progresses.”
According to El Diario, a Spanish language newspaper in Juárez, Darwin José García of the southern Mexican state of Veracruz initially told police he was a migrant attempting to cross into the United States. But the man later told reporters he was practicing a sport on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande around 8:50 p.m. Saturday while a group of migrants were crossing the river, according to the newspaper. García said he then heard shots and realized he had been shot in the leg, the newspaper reported.
In December, Gov. Greg Abbott sent state troopers and National Guard members to El Paso as part of Operation Lone Star, a multibillion-dollar state effort launched in 2021 to deter migrants from crossing the Rio Grande along the 1,200-mile Texas-Mexico border.
DPS confirmed in an email Monday that troopers responded to a call of a shooting Saturday night involving a National Guard soldier along the Texas-Mexico border in West Texas. DPS said the incident is now under investigation by the Texas Rangers and that no additional information is available.
The U.S. Border Patrol referred all questions to DPS. Abbott‘s office declined to comment, referring all questions to the Texas Military Department.
