A good shoot, with odd reaction. . .

News has gotten out about yet another U.S. Border Patrol shooting.
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"Another one?" you may ask.
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Well, yes. There's no change-- even back when I went through academy in the early '90's, it was known that the branch of law enforcement with the highest rate of shootings was the U.S. Border Patrol. It's just that nowadays, it gets more attention. Some of the new attention has to do with the furor over illegal imigration, and some of it has to do with new accountability of officers for shootings. For many years, shootings occured that nobody much talked about or did anything about, down on the border. That's changing.
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So anyway, without the benefit of any backstory, I present this video of a Border Patrol officer stopping a rock thrower (Ramiro Gamez Acosta, a 20 year old Mexican man) who is in full wind-up, only a few feet away, when the agent put a single round from his patrol rifle through the rock-thrower's chest.
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Some have questioned if the rock thrower was really going to throw at the agent, or if he was going to throw at the vehicle. Well, if you look at the windup and stretch of any pitcher, it can be kind of hard to tell where he's about to throw. Where, exactly, is this guy about to throw to? If he were cursing you and ran up to within 10 feet of you with a fist-sized rock, would you want to bet that it wasn't at you?
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There's the question of whether a thrown rock merits deadly force. While I suppose that the size of the rock changes it a little, consider that even a very small rock thrown hard at the face can blind one eye for life, and a rock as small as a golf ball can easily be fatal if it hits the head or neck. In terms of historical context, it seems that it would take a pretty meticulous Bible scholar to find all the stonings just in that book, alone. (Some versions report that it was with a stone that Cain slew Abel-- supposedly the first ever murder.). What would it take to incapacitate the officer long enough to take his weapons?
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Fortunately, the US Border Patrol and I apparently have basically the same feelings on the subject-- the officer involved was returned to duty after a mere 3 days of administrative leave.
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The Border Patrol is furious, reportedly, that someone leaked the video to the news media. While it shows poor discipline among the staff that it got out, one has to wonder if there's ANY reason why they wouldn't want this video out there, to at least shut up the B.P.'s detractors this once.
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The Border Patrol have a very tough job. I frankly wouldn't want it. While we should hold them to a high standard, let's give them what they need to do their job, including our support where it's merited. Like now, for instance.