/ Modified sep 24, 2015 10:29 a.m.

Border Patrol Agent Indicted in Mexican Teen's Death in 2012

Rock throwing led agent to shoot through border fence, killing 16-year-old in 2012.

border protest fence nogales spotlight A protestor on the U.S. side of the border fence leans close to talk to protestors on the Mexican side.
Fernanda Echavarri

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been indicted in the fatal 2012 shooting of a teenage boy along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Luis Parra, lawyer for the boy's mother, said a federal grand jury indicted agent Lonnie Swartz Wednesday on a charge of second-degree murder.

Swartz fired through the border fence into Nogales, Sonora, and fatally wounded 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez on Oct. 10, 2012.

The boy's family has filed a lawsuit in the case.

The Border Patrol said that Elena Rodriguez was among a group of rock-throwers endangering agents' lives. But his family said the boy was walking home from a basketball game with friends.

Swartz's lawyer, Sean Chapman, told the Arizona Daily Star that his client will plead not guilty at an Oct. 9 arraignment.

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