Activists to rally outside Arizona court in border shooting

: Category: Politics; Published: 11 May 2018

PHOENIX (AP) - Activists have called for a rally outside the Tucson federal courthouse, anticipating a possible final decision on whether a U.S. Border Patrol agent will be retried after the second-degree murder case against him in a cross-border shooting ended in mistrial.

Marla Pacheco, of a Tucson human rights coalition, says activists will gather Friday morning outside the U.S. court before a status conference hearing in the case against agent Lonnie Swartz, demanding a retrial in the shooting of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez in Nogales, Mexico.

A mistrial was declared last month after deadlocked jurors acquitted Swartz of second-degree murder in the 2012 shooting.

Prosecutors have since been mulling whether to pursue a retrial on manslaughter charges in the first prosecution of a Border Patrol agent in a fatal cross-border shooting.

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