Video Shows Border Patrol SUV Hit Guy and Drive Away

Paulo Remes says he knew it was going to happen
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 16, 2018 9:30 AM CDT
Video: Border Patrol SUV Hits Native American, Drives Off
In this file photo, a US Border Patrol agent drives near the US-Mexico border fence.   (AP Photo/Russell Contreras, File)

"They just ran me over, bro." Those words are echoing across social media today after a Border Patrol vehicle was caught on video apparently striking a Native American man and driving away, the New York Times reports. Shot by the man on his phone, the video shows him approaching the SUV on a dirt road in Tohono O'odham Nation, roughly 60 miles southwest of Tucson, Arizona. Instead of slowing or stopping, the vehicle knocks him over. Paulo Remes says he was bruised and taken to hospital, the Arizona Daily Star reports. "I'm doing all right, I'm just a little sore, really," he says. The 34-year-old says he noticed the SUV and walked onto the road, figuring he knew what would happen.

"I ran into the dirt road in front of my house, because I know they’ll try and hit me," says Remes. "I think he saw me on the landline and didn’t think I was recording." The FBI, the US Attorney's Office, and the tribe's police department are now investigating. And Indivisible Tohono, an organization that sheds light on border policies, is posting the video on Facebook and Twitter. "This is an example of the fear O’odham have to face everyday because BP ravage our communities & are careless with our lives," the group says in a tweet. Tensions have risen since tribal leaders opposed letting President Trump build a border wall there, and the land became a transit hub for drug traffickers and illegal immigrants. (More Native Americans stories.)

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