Possible Cover-Up Probed in Border Killing : Immigration: Officials say agents were present when fellow officer allegedly shot a Mexican man in the back. The incident was not reported until the following day.

By PATRICK J. McDONNELL

June 18, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NOGALES, Ariz. — Authorities who filed the first murder charge in memory against a U.S. Border Patrol officer were investigating Wednesday the possibility that other agents may have tried to cover up the crime by not reporting it for more than 15 hours.

“We’re looking into all areas,” said Maj. Ramon Arturo Romo of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department, who would not rule out additional arrests in last week’s shooting in a remote border canyon.

The victim--Dario Miranda Valenzuela, 26, a laborer from neighboring Nogales, Mexico--was shot twice in the back with a high-powered weapon and was unarmed, authorities said. Family lawyers said Valenzuela was running away, toward Mexico, when he was shot.

The agent, Michael Andrew Elmer, 29, who had been with the Border Patrol 3 1/2 years, was arrested Saturday and charged with first-degree murder. He is being held without bail in the Santa Cruz County Detention Center pending a hearing today. If convicted, Elmer could face the death penalty.

Elmer was turned in by a fellow agent, who reported the death to superiors at 10:30 a.m. Saturday--15 1/2 hours after the shooting, which occurred at 7 p.m. Friday, Romo said. At least five Border Patrol agents, including Elmer, were present at the scene of the shooting, the sheriff’s official said.

Investigators are questioning the other agents to determine if there was a conspiracy to conceal the shooting, Romo said. The agent who reported the incident, and who has not been publicly identified, may have come forward out of remorse over the shooting, Romo said.

At least two other illegal immigrants were present, along with Valenzuela, but they denied witnessing the shooting, Romo said.

The agent’s attorney, Michael Piccarreta of Tucson, said Elmer was a “scapegoat” of the nation’s much-heralded war on drugs. The shooting occurred at a spot known to be favored by traffickers, officials said.

“When you put someone out there with weapons, automatic weapons, in a dangerous area like this, there’s going to be casualties,” said Piccarreta, who said he believed his client would be vindicated.

The incident occurred in a remote border canyon about seven miles west of Nogales and one-quarter mile north of the border. At the time, officials said, Border Patrol agents were conducting surveillance of suspected narcotics smugglers.

Relatives and attorneys for the dead man’s family said he was not involved in smuggling but was crossing only to find work to support his family. No drugs were found at the scene, authorities said.

The circumstances of the shooting--including the fact that agents waited so long to report the death--prompted officials to quickly file the first-degree murder charge, said Romo and Santa Cruz County Atty. Jose Luis Machado, the prosecutor.

Meanwhile, attorneys for the dead man’s family said Valenzuela may have been left to die by the Border Patrol agents, who left after Valenzuela was shot. No medical help was summoned, Romo confirmed.

“They just left him there to die,” said Jesus R. Romo Vejar, a Tucson attorney representing the dead man’s family, including his wife, who is pregnant, and his two children, ages 4 and 2.

The case has sparked outrage among Latino advocates in the U.S.-Mexico border area, who have long maintained that the nearly 4,000 agents who work the border zone enjoy virtual immunity from prosecution despite frequent allegations of abuse, including alleged beatings and murders.

Activists viewed the decision to prosecute the death as a case of first-degree murder as a potentially watershed event in border-area law enforcement.

“This is the Rodney King case of the Border Patrol,” said Guadalupe Castillo, a representative of La Mesilla Organizing Project, a Tucson-based rights group that monitors abuse.

The Mexican government is also extremely concerned about the incident and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari was notified immediately via the Foreign Ministry, said Emerenciano Rodriguez, Mexican consul in Nogales.

Stephen R. McDonald, a Border Patrol spokesman, declined to comment on the case, saying only that the agency was cooperating with local authorities. Elmer was placed on administrative leave. Border Patrol officials would not comment on the status of the other four agents who were near the scene.

Duke Austin, a spokesman in Washington for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said it was “reprehensible” and “offensive” that critics would attempt to characterize the incident as part of any widespread behavior. He called agents “well-trained.”

Austin, a longtime INS spokesman, said he could recall no other patrol agents having been charged with homicide or murder in connection with their duties. But records dating to the patrol’s founding in 1924 have not been researched on the matter, Austin added.

Meanwhile, Valenzuela’s family said Wednesday that he was crossing the border en route to Tucson, where he hoped to find construction work.

“I think it was a crime what they did to him,” said a half-brother, Arturo Guerrero Valenzuela, 43, of Tucson. “They had no right to do it. They should be punished.”