The retrial of Border Patrol agent Lonnie Swartz on voluntary and involuntary manslaughter charges starts Tuesday, Oct. 23, before U.S. District Judge Raner Collins in Tucson.

Swartz, originally charged with second-degree murder in the 2012 cross-border shooting of 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodríguez, was acquitted of that charge on April 23 by a jury of eight women and four men.

Collins had given jurors the option to consider voluntary and involuntary manslaughter if they were unable to reach a verdict, but after four days of deliberation they told the judge they couldn’t reach a unanimous decision on the lesser charges.

Swartz fired 16 shots into Mexico from three different locations along the border fence in Nogales. The teen, who was across the street from the base of a 14-foot cliff, was hit eight times in the back and twice in the head.

The agent admitted shooting through the fence in response to a group of rock-throwers, which both sides said included Elena Rodríguez. Swartz’s attorneys argued the shooting was in self-defense and therefore justified.

The prosecution told jurors that Swartz didn’t have to use lethal force that night and instead could have taken cover or increased the distance between himself and the 22-foot fence as other agents at the scene testified doing.

Swartz is the first Border Patrol agent to be federally charged in a cross-border use-of-force death. In Arizona, three other agents have been charged in border-related deaths either by the state or federal govern- ments; all three were cleared.

Fatal border patrol shootings in Southern Arizona: 


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