Tentative Approval on $1 Million Settlement for Mexican Man's Death at Hands of CBP Agent The Associated Press
go to original March 3, 2017

Maria Puga, center, arrives with her children to a news conference on Thursday in San Diego (Eduardo Contreras/The San Diego Union-Tribune)

A federal judge tentatively approved an agreement for the U.S. government to pay $1 million to the children of a Mexican man who died after being detained by immigration authorities and shot several times with a stun gun.

The settlement considered by U.S. Magistrate Judge Louisa Porter is intended to end a nearly 7-year case that prompted widespread complaints that U.S. immigration authorities tolerated agents who use excessive force. Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges.

The five, U.S.-born children of Anastasio Hernandez will split the money if the deal receives final approval, with about a quarter going for attorney fees and costs.

“My husband’s life does not have a price,” Maria Puga, Hernandez’s longtime partner and the mother of their five children, said at a news conference after the hearing. “The decision I had to take was difficult. We had to turn the page.”

Pretrial questions were pending before an appeals court and the case had not yet been scheduled for trial.

Puga’s three older children are adults and she also has 10-year-old twins.

Read the rest at Mercury News

Related: Latino Immigrant Homicide Victims Are an Inconvenient Truth for the Trump Administration (Latina Lista)

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