Raymond Mattia called Border Patrol for help. Migrants had come onto his property near the border in Menager’s Dam, Arizona, and he wanted them gone. So he picked up the phone and did what you’re supposed to do. He called the professionals.
The professionals showed up at his front door with 26 agents and opened fire. Nine bullets. That’s what the autopsy found. Nine.
Now the three agents who pulled the triggers, Scott Whitehouse, Dan Sifuentes, and Ivan Torralva, want a federal appeals court to give them qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that says government officials can’t be sued unless they violated a “clearly established” right. The DOJ lawyer sent to argue their case, Sophia Shams, told the Ninth Circuit panel in San Francisco that the body camera footage tells a story that exonerates them. The family’s attorney, Ryan Stitt, pointed out something that should make your stomach turn: “They’ve killed the only other witness that’s a non-law enforcement officer to the interaction.”
Mattia Preti (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsAsk yourself how convenient that is. The one person who could contradict the official narrative is dead. And now the government’s lawyer is asking three judges to rely on an edited, redacted compilation of body cam footage, four cameras out of ten that were rolling that night, to close the case. Not the full footage. Not the unredacted version. A highlight reel produced by the same agency whose agents did the shooting.
Here’s what we know happened. Mattia stepped outside carrying a sheathed hunting knife. When tribal police told him to drop it, he tossed it to the ground. Then agents screamed at him to take his hand out of his pocket. He did. He was holding a cellphone. They shot him anyway.
The DOJ lawyer couldn’t even answer a simple question from Judge Ana Isabel De Alba about whether Mattia tossed the knife underhand or threw it at the agents. Four times she was asked. Four times she dodged. Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. finally cut in: “We’ve all seen the video.” They had. And it wasn’t showing her what she wanted it to show.
Harris & Ewing, photographer (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsFunny how the dispatcher couldn’t pinpoint where the supposed shots were fired from, but agents went straight to Mattia’s house with guns drawn. Funny how one agent is caught on camera calling him “this motherf***er” before they even reached him. Funny how Mattia was on his village’s community council and had been publicly outspoken about Border Patrol corruption, including illegal activity by border law enforcement itself. Ask yourself who benefits from silencing a man like that.
The Border Patrol union’s vice president, Art del Cueto, went on a podcast to mention Mattia had a prior arrest record. Because nothing says “we’re the good guys” like digging up a dead man’s rap sheet to justify putting nine rounds in him on his own property.
His sister Annette was on the phone with him when it happened. She heard the gunfire. She told Arizona Public Media his body sat in the front yard for seven hours. “We just got to say our goodbyes in a bodybag,” she said.
Chickering, Elmer; Hale, Philip, 1854-1934 (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsThe agents are on leave. With pay. And if history is any guide, they’ll stay that way. CBP’s own Use of Force Review Board declined to issue sanctions in 96 percent of the 684 cases it reviewed in fiscal year 2021. Ninety-six percent. You have better odds at a casino than you do getting disciplined for killing someone while wearing a federal badge.
The qualified immunity doctrine was invented by the Supreme Court, not Congress. There’s no statute. It’s judge-made law that keeps growing like a tumor, shielding government employees from consequences no private citizen would ever enjoy. You shoot an unarmed man on his lawn, you get a paid vacation and a team of DOJ lawyers arguing you deserve a free pass.
The Ninth Circuit panel didn’t look ready to grant it. But don’t celebrate yet. The system has a thousand ways to protect its own. It just needs one of them to work.