Pubdate: Tue, 16 Jun 1998
Source: Arizona Daily Star
Contact:  http://www.azstarnet.com/
Author: Tim Steller The Arizona Daily Star

RENO JOINS CROWD IN MOURNING VICTIM OF BORDER SHOOTING

Arizona Border Patrol agents got a chance yesterday to mourn Alexander
Kirpnick, the fellow agent who was slain near Nogales on June 3.

About 1,500 agents and others, including U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno,
gathered in Tucson Electric Park for a service in Kirpnick's memory.

Officials also announced yesterday that a third suspect was arrested in
Kirpnick's killing. Kirpnick was shot through the head in the early morning
while trying to arrest a group of suspected marijuana smugglers outside
Nogales.

Mexican police arrested a 25-year-old man on Thursday, the same day they
arrested Bernardo Velardez Lopez, said Steve McCraw, assistant special
agent in charge of the FBI's Tucson office. McCraw would not name the third
suspect, who remains in custody in Nogales, Sonora.

Yesterday, officials pledged to prosecute all the suspects in the killing
of Kirpnick, who immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union in
1988.

``He represents what America means to us all,'' Reno said. Kirpnick ``came
seeking freedom and gave his country that last measure of devotion.

``I am so proud of him, so proud of the Border Patrol and so proud of the
people who work so hard for the principles he defended,'' she said.

The third arrest in Kirpnick's killing leaves only one suspect free, McCraw
said. The FBI believes only four marijuana smugglers were present when
Kirpnick was killed.

The Border Patrol initially reported five smugglers were present, along
with Kirpnick's fellow agent.

Manuel Gamez, 26, was arrested near the scene of the crime, about two miles
north of the U.S.-Mexican border, on June 3. Velardez, 25, the suspected
trigger man, was arrested Thursday in Nogales, Sonora, and sent to a jail
in Mexico City. U.S. officials are pursuing the extradition of Velardez and
the other suspect arrested Thursday, McCraw said.

The presence of Reno and Doris Meissner, the commissioner of the U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service, moved some of the agents. The
Border Patrol is an agency of the INS, which is part of the Justice
Department, headed by Reno.

``It does mean a whole lot for them to be here,'' said agent Daniel Hann,
president of the National Border Patrol Council, Local 2544. ``It means
they at least care.''

Chief Patrol Agent Ron Sanders presented Kirpnick's badge and credentials
to Kirpnick's father and sister, who attended the memorial service.

``The Arizona desert will soon erase the many footprints that Border Patrol
agent Kirpnick placed in the sand,'' Sanders said. ``However, the Border
Patrol will hold on to the experiences that they've shared with agent
Kirpnick. For they will be imprinted in our genes, and they will be passed
on to future Border Patrol agents.''

Agents fired a 21-gun salute in Kirpnick's honor. Six helicopters flew over
the baseball stadium in a ``missing man formation,'' one of them veering to
the southwest as the others continued on southeast.

Zhanna Kirpnick, the agent's 20-year-old sister, spoke a few words to the
crowd and sent a message to her brother's survivors in the agency.

``To all of you who are out there every day, please be careful.''

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