A man fatally shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent while in custody at a facility in El Paso, Texas, had escaped his cell and lunged at police with a weapon before he was killed, according to federal investigators.
Manuel Gonzalez-Moran, 33, died Tuesday after being shot twice by a Border Patrol agent inside the Ysleta Border Patrol Station in El Paso.
The FBI identified Gonzalez-Moran as a previously deported Mexican citizen with an aggravated criminal history. He had recently been released from a U.S. prison following more than a decade behind bars for a brutal assault. He was deported to Mexico earlier this year.
The FBI commenced an investigation into the incident and immediately identified federal agents as victims in the situation and having acted in self-defense when Gonzalez-Moran attempted to assault them.
New information provided to the Washington Examiner by the FBI states that Gonzalez-Moran was first encountered on the border walking by himself and holding a metal pipe in his hand.
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Agents who arrested him had directed him to drop the weapon. Gonzalez-Moran complied, then was loaded into a vehicle and taken to a nearby Border Patrol station for intake.
After taking him into custody, agents discovered he had previously been caught attempting to enter the country illegally.
Gonzalez-Moran was deported to Mexico just five months ago after serving 11 years of his 17-year sentence after being convicted in Colorado for assault with a deadly weapon resulting in serious bodily injury.
He was arrested by the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office in Pueblo, Colorado, and charged with attempted first-degree murder.
As a previously deported illegal immigrant with a criminal conviction, agents would have planned to return Gonzalez-Moran to Mexico rather than release him into the United States.
While at the station, Gonzalez-Moran “charged out of a holding cell,” past a Border Patrol agent, then “grabbed an edged weapon off a desk in the processing area,” according to a statement the FBI issued Thursday.
“Agents provided verbal commands and attempted to gain control by utilizing non-deadly force methods, specifically taser, which was unsuccessful,” the FBI statement continued. “Agents continued providing verbal commands, however, Moran continued to advance upon them with the edged weapon at which time he was shot by Agents.”
Luis Chaparro from Vice reported that Gonzalez-Moran was shot twice “at point blank range,” an indication that he had charged at the agent from a distance and was shot at the last possible moment.
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Agents provided emergency medical care immediately. Gonzalez-Moran was taken to the Del Sol Hospital and declared dead as a result of his injuries.
The FBI, the lead government agency overseeing an investigation into the incident, said in an email that the incident is being handled as an “assault on a federal officer investigation.”
