Taken from:
http://www.dpft.org/hernandez/gallery/ On May 20, 1997, Esequiel Hernandez, Jr. was herding his family's goats 100 yards from his home on the US-Mexican border in Redford, Texas, as he did every day. Six days before, he had turned 18 years old.
Unknown to Esequiel or any of the other residents of Redford, a group of four Marines led by 22-year old Corporal Clemente Banuelos had been encamped just outside the small village along the Rio Grande River for three days. After watering his small flock of goats in the river, Esequiel started on his way back home when the Marines began stalking him from a distance of 200 yards.
The four camouflaged Marines were outfitted with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment and weapons. Esequiel carried an antique .22 caliber rifle – a pre-World War I, single shot rifle to keep wild dogs and rattlesnakes away from his goats. The autopsy showed that Esequiel was facing away from the Marines when he was shot. He probably never knew the Marines were watching him from 200 yards away.
Thus it was that a 22 year-old United States Marine shot and killed an innocent 18 year-old boy tending his family's goats. This outrageous act was the inevitable consequence of a drug prohibition policy gone mad. Esequiel Hernandez was killed not by drugs but by military officers of the United States government.
If the movie does make it to DC, I highly encourage everyone to get out and see this documentary. Maybe it will screen at Silver Docs. Tommy Lee Jones' film "Three Burials" is based on a real killing near the Texas-Mexico border southeast of El Paso. In 1997, a group of marines, purportedly on a drug interception mission, shot and killed 18 year-old Esequiel Hernandez Jr. "in self defense." Hernandez, who was armed at the time and whom the marines claimed fired at them, was outside herding goats
Tommy Lee Jones does the narration for this film and encouraged the director/producer (who happened to work on his film) to make this documentary.
