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Steller column: Tucson priest's arrest casts doubt on assaults on border agents

• http://tucson.com, By Tim Steller

On that day in December 2016, he and his family were returning to Tucson from a beach trip to Rocky Point and had been inspected at the Lukeville border crossing. They'd also gone through a Border Patrol checkpoint about 20 miles north of the border along Arizona 85. And now they were pulling into another Border Patrol checkpoint near Three Points.

"I drove up to the checkpoint and opened the window to say, 'We're U.S. citizens,'" Tadeo told me last week. The agent "insisted on wanting to hear from everyone in the car. I say, 'We're all U.S. citizens.'"

When the agents didn't accept Tadeo's declaration, the situation started to devolve.

"This is the third time. We're getting harassed," Tadeo told the agents. One agent denied that, saying everyone is treated the same.

Soon the situation turned into bickering and confusion. In the end, all seven family members in the RV were detained for hours. Tadeo, 47, and his sister Andrea, 50, were each charged with assault on a federal officer.


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