Shots fired. Shot fired. Hey, shots fired. Shot fired. >> A Border Patrol agent, alone in the brush along the Texas border, gets hit in the head and arm with a tree branch, then fires the shot that puts him on his knees next to the man he just shot, trying to keep him alive with his own hands. May 16th, [music] 2024, approximately 4:24 in the afternoon, near Cuomado, Texas, [music] about 20 mi northwest of the Eagle Passport port of entry, roughly 200 yd north of the international border, a border patrol agent spots footprints belonging to a group of five to six people. He radios it in and starts tracking alone through dense brush. >> Go ahead, sir. Yeah, I got a guy here who's combatant. Can you come my way? >> By 4:40, the agent can hear movement in the brush, but isn't sure yet if he's found the group. [music] 10 minutes later, he has. CBP's official account describes what happens next as an encounter with a combatant subject. The AY's own word, not an independently confirmed account of what the man actually did or said. The agent tries to detain and handcuff him. A struggle breaks out. He gets one cuff on before the man breaks free and runs into the brush ahead of him. [music] >> All unit till we figure out what's going on with this uh this call. >> The agent chases him on foot, [music] ordering him to the ground. The man doesn't go down. Instead, according to the official account, he stops, picks up a tree branch, and [music] swings, striking the agent in the head and the arm. The agent draws his collapsible baton and strikes back at the man's legs, hoping to end the pursuit without further escalation. It isn't enough to stop him. >> On that uh situation, what's the status of you guys out there? >> Unit trying to transmit your >> fire. Fire. >> [music] >> off of Jones Drive in Kamalo toward the river. >> At approximately 452, the man picks up a second larger branch and swings it at the agent again. 1 second later, everything changes. At 4:53 p.m., the agent fires a single round from his handgun. It strikes the man in the right leg. CBP's cameras hold a rolling 2-minute buffer of silent [music] video before activation built to catch exactly this kind of sudden escalation. The agent's camera was already running, worn at chest height, capturing a narrow slice [music] of what's actually happening around him. This is where the audio picks up. Say no. Says aria. USA. >> Shots fired. Shots fired. Hey, shots fired. Shots fired. >> The agent doesn't wait for backup. He goes straight to the wound. >> I'm trying to uh take care of the wounds right now. I'm in I'm I'm uh treating the subsect's wounds right now. He's uh been shot in the leg. >> Someone on scene tries to get more help moving toward them. The radio traffic barely holding together under the noise of everything happening at once. >> I want to notify DPS if anyone is in the area to assist as well. >> The agent is working with whatever he has on him. No trauma kit yet, [music] just his own hands and his own clothing. >> I just kept a I just kept my uh my my goth on my cloth on right here. Okay. >> Uh, do you have an undershirt by chance? >> Yeah, I I do. >> Can you If you hold this, I can get it out. >> [ __ ] Did it go through? >> I don't know. >> Another agent gets down to help hold pressure [music] using his own body weight because there's nothing else to use yet. >> I don't think >> here. Could you could you hold pressure with your knee >> instead of your hand? >> Yeah. >> Like put all your [ __ ] body weight on you. >> Okay. >> I do. I do. >> You do? >> I'm trying to get his Just make sure you keep your pressure on your knee. Oh, >> this one. Get that off. >> This isn't trained detachment. It's [music] two men in the dirt, one of them bleeding, improvising a trauma response with cloth and body weight until real equipment shows [music] up. >> I didn't. Nope. >> I was just push I was trying to push it in there, but then I was like, you know what? Let me just keep pressure. >> Is it high enough? Yeah. Perfect. All right. Let me stop the [ __ ] turn. Come on here. Okay. All right. I'm going to take his pants off. I need you to to put put your chest in there. All right. Right over. >> At approximately 5:00 p.m., a tourniquet [music] finally goes on the man's right leg. >> He's putting a tourniquet on right now. Thank you. >> Hey, and I are putting a tourniquet on right now. Someone tries to give their exact location to whoever's coming to help. A stretch of brush that doesn't have a clean address. >> We're off of Jones Road in the brush. If you have We should be on there or at least the gray the gray spot where I lost. >> And somebody wants a helicopter now. >> Hey, can we get life? Yeah. >> Can you get lifelight? He has a been shot in the leg and we just put a tourniquet on. >> For the next several minutes, it's a relay race against geography. thick brush, no road access, a man who can't walk on his own. At approximately 50:07, a third agent reaches the scene and helps carry him to a service vehicle. [music] By 512, he's being driven out in the bed of a Border Patrol pickup truck [music] toward a Border Patrol EMT's vehicle stocked with more equipment than anyone could carry on foot through [music] that terrain. He's treated there while everyone waits for EMS to make it in. At approximately 5:25 p.m., more than half an hour after the shot was fired, an ambulance finally reaches him. He's transported to a medical facility in Eagle Pass, Texas. The agent, struck in the head and arm during the struggle, is taken to a hospital as well. CBP identifies the man only as a 34year-old male citizen of Mexico. Neither his name nor the agents name is ever made public in the released material. [music] Neither is his condition after he reaches the hospital or the exact extent of the injuries the agent sustained to his own head and arm. The FBI, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General all respond to investigate alongside CBP's own Office of Professional Responsibility. By the time [music] the footage is finally made public, the FBI has closed its investigation. CBP's internal review has not. The AY's National Use of Force Review Board is still expected to weigh in, a determination that as of this release has never been made public. No criminal charges, civil lawsuit, or [music] court record tied to this shooting has surfaced anywhere in the public record either. that public [music] release doesn't come quickly. The shooting happens on May 16th, 2024. The video isn't posted until May 23rd, 2025, more than a year later. 17 [music] minutes and 48 seconds. Radio traffic condensed and stripped of silence. standing as the only public record of [music] a chase through the brush that ends with one agent applying a tourniquet to a stranger he shot less than a minute after being hit with a tree branch.