Who’s Been Shooting Bullets into El Paso from Juarez?

Through the past weekend (August 6th thru August 9th) there were 2 separate incidents of shots being fired from Juarez into El Paso. In the Monday incident, the shooter may have been trying to shoot an on-duty Border Patrol officer.

The unnamed officer says that he heard the gunshots while patrolling the Cesar Chavez Border Highway in El Paso’s Lower Valley. Upon hearing the shots the officer says he got out of his vehicle (???) and took cover. It’s undetermined if the Border Patrol officer was the intended target but none of the shots hit the agent or his vehicle.

On Friday, shots were fired in the pre-dawn hours near the Water Treatment facility in Socorro. The two shootings occurred about 7 miles apart.

The CBP and FBI are jointly investigating and say they are cooperating with their Mexican law enforcement partners. The Chihuahua state Attorney General says there’s no proof yet that American officers were the intended targets but the CBP says about 20 rounds were fired in the Friday incident toward a US officer from about 150 yards away.

There’s a lot of speculation that human traffickers in Mexico are sending a message to US law enforcement. In July a banner was hung in Juarez, threatening US Border Patrol agents if they interfered with “polleros” , the Spanish term for human smugglers.

“Bullets can also cross the river and the wall” the Spanish-language banner said.

Back in 2010 bullets fired from Mexico struck El Paso City Hall and a UTEP building. Those bullets are believed to have been stray shots fired from the Mexican side during the brutal cartel war that was raging at the time.