Welcome to America: Texas Police Sniper Guns Down Immigrants From Helicopter

Source: Information Liberation

Remember a few months ago how a DEA helicopter was used to gun down two pregnant women and two 14-yr-old boys in Honduras because they were "suspected" of being drug dealers? Well, those same tactics are now being used in America.

After being pulled over for having a suspect "covered truck bed," a vehicle which fled from Texas game wardens was shot at by Texas "Department of Public Safety" agents with a sniper rifle from a helicopter. While the police claim they were intending to disable the car, they instead killed two passengers, and sent another to the hospital. No drugs were found, and the DPS says their shooting was "within policy."

My San Antonio reports:

LA JOYA — Skid marks and a patch of dried blood in the gravel of a desolate country road were about the only signs left Friday of a deadly pursuit that happened here.

Two men from Guatemala died Thursday when a Department of Public Safety helicopter opened fire on a red pickup suspected of smuggling immigrants.

A third person was hospitalized and six were arrested in the latest in a string of smuggling attempts that turned deadly while packed vehicles flee from state or federal authorities.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said the chase began when Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens attempted to pull over the truck they thought was carrying drugs. When the driver didn't stop, the wardens called DPS for assistance.

“During the pursuit, the vehicle appeared to have a typical ‘covered' drug load in the bed of the truck,” Vinger said. “DPS aircraft joined the pursuit of the suspected drug load, which was traveling at reckless speeds, endangering the public. A DPS trooper discharged his firearm from the helicopter to disable the vehicle.”

No drugs were found in the truck.

During interviews at a Border Patrol facility, survivors told consular officials that the men died from gunfire, and that their cover was flimsy and blowing off, enough so that the trooper in the helicopter could see them.

Vinger said the officer who discharged his weapon was placed on administrative leave.

[...]The policy warns that when shooting at a vehicle “there may be a risk of harm to occupants of the suspect vehicle who may not be involved, or involved to a lesser extent, with the actions of the suspect creating the threat.”

Use of force expert Geoffrey Alpert, a professor at the University of South Carolina who has studied pursuits at police departments across the country, said he'd “never heard of” law enforcement agencies allowing officers to shoot at vehicles from helicopters.

“There's a trend to restrict officers from shooting at vehicles at all,” Alpert said. “It's not an efficient or effective policy to let officers shoot from vehicles, and certainly not from a helicopter.”

[...]“We can't give up swaths of land to organized thugs and criminals,” DPS Director McCraw said recently.

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