Video Shows Officers Joking at Border Wall Prototypes

Uniformed law enforcement posed for a photograph at the border wall prototypes and their actions were caught on video by a California college student on the Mexico side.Three officers, who appear to be with the San Diego Police Department (SDPD), can be seen near one of the prototypes east of Otay Mesa Port of Entry soon after President Donald Trump’s visit to the restricted area. One officer puts his hands up on the wall and raises his foot while a second officer poses as if he’s giving the officer a hand climbing up the wall. The third officer appears to be using a phone to capture the picture. Jaciel Ortega, a student at Scripps College in Claremont, California was in Mexico on a school trip for her “US-Mexico Border” class. She told Telemundo 20 she was at the wall at 2:45 p.m. after the president had toured the prototypes with federal and local law enforcement officers blocking the public’s access to the area. When she noticed the officers laughing and joking around, she began recording them, she said.Ortega said the officers looked in her direction and appeared to notice they were being recorded but, she said, they didn’t say anything to her.She posted the video on Instagram shortly after taking it with a caption that read in part, ” and in the two days it’s been up users have commented on it more than 100 times — some calling it an offensive joke while others brush it off as harmless.”That’s just silly. I don’t even know why people are talking about that,” Alex Woods told NBC 7. “It’s people having fun their jobs.”Local student Brandon Lumberas shares the opinion of several Instagram users who commented on Ortega’s post who called the photo opportunity disgusting, ignorant and unacceptable, among other things.”Some Mexicans, we do things right. So we have the visa, we have the other papers right. But some Mexicans don’t do that because they have a money emergency, an economic emergency, so that’s offensive for us,” Lumberas said.When NBC 7 reached out to the SDPD to get some information regarding the officers’ actions and why they were in the restricted area near the prototypes, Officer Bill Hernandez told us, “We were just made aware of this and [are] currently looking into the incident.”SDPD did not confirm that the officers are with the department.Photo Credit: Jaciel Ortega This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.
Source: NBC San Diego