EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Federal prosecutors have filed charges against two men from Mexico allegedly caught firing guns in a public venue east of Phoenix.
Luis Alfonso Hernandez Felix and Jose Romario Zazueta Valenzuela were taken into custody after U.S. Forest Service agents observed “a group of subjects shooting firearms recklessly into the air and down into the ground,” at Tonto National Forest, according to a criminal complaint filed October 7 in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.
The agents, who were part of a special multi-agency patrol, approached the area and zeroed in on two men bearing a Glock 9mm semi-automatic gun and a .45-caliber pistol.
The subjects “were also observed discharging a firearm without a safe back-stop (a barrier) while large crowds of the public were exposed to gunfire in front of Hernandez Felix and Zazueta Valenzuela,” the complaint states.
The Forest Service agents were accompanied by detention officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations detention officers. They interviewed the two men in Spanish and found out the guns were borrowed from friends and that neither of the men were legally present in the U.S.
The agents advised Hernandez and Zazueta that shooting at scattered refuse on the federal property is prohibited by posted sings and online public information. The ERO further advised the men that persons illegally present in the United States are ineligible to possess or discharge firearms.
The two face up to 10 years in prison after being charged with counts of possession of a firearm by an alien unlawfully present in the United States. They are also subject to removal from the country.
According to the Department of Justice, knowingly giving or selling a firearm to a prohibited person also is a felony. Hernandez and Zazueta said the friends they purportedly borrowed the guns from were not present, and they did not immediately identify them by name.
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