Being Detained Part 3

While the Agent is having this consensual conversation with you you are — essentially — detained. You and your vehicle cannot leave. It is very important that you do not attempt to leave.

Leaving the Agent without his permission will almost certainly be met with what is called in the vernacular of the profession a Dynamic Apprehension. We civilians might call it a chase and a tackle.

The problem with a Dynamic Apprehension is that one or more of you will fall to the ground and or bounce off of various hard objects like walls, cars, the sidewalk or rocks and bushes if perpetrated in more suburban areas.

This fall almost certainly will be with you — the illegal / the uncooperatve — on the bottom and with the usually larger more athletically inclined Agent on top. If somehow you wind up on top then things can get very energetic and the mysteries of your life may be found in your autopsy report.

It does not matter what YOU think is going on. It only matters what the Border Patrol Agent thinks is going on. In addition, people sitting at home who have never been in trouble with the law or have never dealt with violent criminals have no idea what violent things can happen.

The most inspiringly pathetic report of this kind of culture clash between people in the know and the completely naieve occured in Switzerland. A Muslim fellow decided to hijack an airplane and people died at his hands. He was captured and convicted of murder and the hijacking of an airliner and he received a life term in a Swiss prison. Time passes. The Swiss in their infinite wisdom and vast experience only with Swiss criminals … offer the murdering hijacker with a Life Sentence a weekend pass. Now, even the most liberal American should know what happened next. Well, it just never even occurred to the Swiss …

So, again, Border Patrol Agents have to deal with the real world and not how things should be and so they take Dynamic Apprehensions as serious events of life and death.

Again, Border Patrol Agents have to deal with very unpleasant people on a daily basis and have years of experience limiting the level of potential danger to themselves and to other potential victims.

It is the Agent’s sworn duty to defend the borders of the United States and to stop the illegal entry of anyone.