A Tohono O’odham family says Border Patrol used too much force when agents shot and killed a tribal member last May. Federal investigators said they did not find evidence to justify any criminal charges against the agents. That decision has drawn a formal protest from Tohono O’odham tribal leadership.
KGUN9 talked to the dead mans sister about her loss and plans for a civil rights lawsuit in the case.
Annette Mattia says she was on the phone with her brother Ray. She says maybe two seconds after she hung up she heard gunshotslots of gunshots.
I was in shock. I was like, Who are they shooting at? What happened? What’s going on? You know, I thought they were shooting at someone else. I didn’t think it would be Ray.
They were in the little border village of Meningers Dam deep inside the Tohono O’odham Reservation.
Border Patrol says Tohono O’odham Police asked agents to help with a call of shots fired.
Edited video released by Border Patrol shows agents and Tohono O’odham police searching, then focusing on one man.
The body camera video shows agents aiming their guns at a man and shouting, Put your hands up. Put it down, put it down Get on your (expletive deleted) face! Pull your hands out of your (expletive deleted) pocket!
Within seconds the agents fire multiple shots.
Annette Mattia says, And I heard someone yell, Raymond! and I heard someone say get my bag. I knew right away it was a medical bag. They were asking for it. And then I saw Border Patrol running from one vehicle to the other and I asked him I said, What are you guys shooting at? What did you shoot at? Did you shoot Raymond and they said, We possibly did.
It was Raymond Mattia, hit many times, pronounced dead at the scene. The object he threw right before the shots turned out to be a machete still in its sheath. Agents looked for any other weapons on him. They found nothing.
Tim Scott is part of a team of attorneys the family has hired. The familys attorneys say Mattia complied with what agents ordered but agents ignored their own procedures.
Standard Operating Procedure emphasizes two things, time and space. And they squandered both, in this case, by coming in too quickly, by coming in too close, by creating whatever danger did exist, and that I think underpins the civil rights violations that occurred here.
Annette Mattia says her brother Raymond was a respected leader in his community, a man who led ceremonies and sang traditional Tohono O’odham songs, a craftsman who made pottery and jewelry.
Almost five months after the shooting, the U.S. Attorneys Office announced it did not find anything that deserved criminal charges against the agents and officers.
Now a memorial stands where Raymond Mattia fell.
Annette Mattia says, Ray’s not here to tell us his statement. So we’re fighting for answers for him.
She says now that fight will be through a civil lawsuit claiming law enforcement violated Ray Mattias civil rights by taking his life.