A video is going viral of the CCTV footage showing a Mexican student taking a drink in front of smiling and laughing border patrol officers to prove the bottles he is trying to bring inside the country contain nothing more than harmless “apple juice”. That same student has died from the drinks.
It turns out shockingly, though, the student has died, of “massive overdose” from what proved to be far from harmless drinks but those that actually contained liquid methamphetamine. It is a powerful and highly-addictive drug that is dissolved into an amber liquid.
The 16-year old student in the video has been identified as Mexican high school student Cruz Velazquez. In the video, he could be seen taking sips of the drink that turned out, contained the notorious liquid meth in front of smiling and laughing border patrol officers who initially stopped him from entering the U.S. at a border crossing.
Velazquez died a few hours after his bluff to prove that the drink was just apple juice.
Everything happened three years ago under the Obama administration, and the footage was only obtained recently. This is the first time that the video and the context of the student’s death have been made public.
The officers were not prosecuted, or even reprimanded for what happened. They are still employed today.
Velazquez was then carrying two bottles, provided by a cartel in Mexico. The explanation provided then was that one bottle supposedly contained black tea, the other apple juice. Both, however, were of the same color and had a syrup-like consistency.
The two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in the video, Adrian Parellon and Valerie Baird, were later accused in a lawsuit of outrageous conduct that put the life of the student in danger. The officers denied the allegations and insisted that the teenager volunteered to drink the bottle, willingly trying to prove to them that those are fruit juices.
The officers were also accused of failing to conduct a test on the drinks, and testing kits were available at that time.
In the video footage, Baird is seen even encouraging the student to drink from one of the bottles, and of course, the boy obliged. Parallel then appears to make another gesture for the boy to drink also from the same bottle, pushing it towards the boy and smiling at his colleague. The boy obliged again.
The boy appeared to have taken four sips all in all. The contents of the bottles were later found to be 100 times stronger than a typical dose of methamphetamine.
After only a few minutes, the boy was sweating profusely and shaking as his blood pressure rose, and very quickly, he could no longer stand on his own. After several more minutes, the student started to convulse on the floor, screaming in pain. He called out in Spanish, “my heart”, “my sister”, “my cousin”.
He was taken into custody before being rushed to a hospital, his hands handcuffed to a gurney. He later died.
The student’s lawyer believes that the boy was hired as a mole, and paid money to transport the bottles to the U.S., and that he was told that his sister would be killed if he fails to cross the border.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection later decided after a review that “no further action was warranted and the officers involved were not disciplined.” The San Diego County’s Medical Examiner’s Office also ruled that the death was accidental.
The student’s family filed a lawsuit in a federal Californian court and settled for $1 million in March.
The incident proves the perils of “bad hombre” as President Trump famously said from Mexico entering the U.S. with illegal and criminal intentions, and at times like in the case of the poor student, may also use innocent people to do illegal acts for them. The border officers and agents should have been more strict during the Obama administration but a crackdown on illegals entering the U.S. borders was never a priority then.
A crackdown on illegals entering the borders is definitely a priority under the Trump administration, with the plans to put a more effective wall between Mexico and the country. The administration has also been pushing for more border patrol agents to man the areas and for them to be more competent and strict in implementing laws and restrictions against illegals trying to cross the country. Such cases as the student’s death and the potential entry of such high powered illegal drugs into the U.S. make the administration’s policies against illegals not only logical but urgently necessary.
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