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( Photo of Larry as a Young Soldier) Larry Kirschenman speaking: I've been in combat and I've never been hurt that bad in my life.
They've got my wrists, handcuffed wrists up behind my back and they are pushing them up very hard.
They are not trying to restrain me, they are trying to hurt me. Ever since then I'm beginning
to realize our country is not nearly as free and democratic like we might think.
For about eight years I've been going back and forth across the border to get haircuts
or dental work or sometimes just to go for lunch. I went over to Mexico on the 27th of March 2013.
When I came back at approximately 5:00 in afternoon, the first officer said, "Follow me into secondary."
That's where they searched vehicles for contraband or whatever.
So I followed him there. The officer told me, "Get out of the vehicle." And he was using
a very gruff angry tone of voice, and he said, "Turn around and put your hands on the truck, I want to search you."
And I turned about halfway, and I said, "Officer,
I really don't know the rules in here, but don't you need some probable cause to search
me." "No, I don't." And he grabbed me in an arm lock and I work in a prison, same techniques,
and bent my wrist back, and then he picked me up by the seat of my pants and the handcuffs
and slammed my head into the floor.
Now I'm bleeding, I had wound ... peeled a piece of meat off the top of my head about as big as an egg.
I'm handcuffed and chained to a bench and, man, the pain was really hitting my chest, and I said, "I need to go to an
emergency room, I think I'm having a heart attack."
Finally, they called an ambulance. The American doctor, he says, "My God, I don't care what you did, Mr. Kirschenman, you were
handcuffed behind your back, there is four or five young men around you, you are in a
secure facility, there is actually no justification for doing these things to you.
I'm calling the police." And he did, and then the police made a report, took then pictures, they are evidence now.
I went down there the next day to file a complaint.
And they say, "Oh, we can't take it now." That's not right, that's totally wrong. They
are supposed to take your complaints immediately. I was angry. And I felt that I have a right
to protest. And the only thing I could think of was something like this ( Shows a sign he made ) drive back and
forth through that gate until someone got tired of it and decided they would talk to
me about it, but it's apparent they won't do it.
I wake up dreaming about this thing, it wakes me up and I'm trembling, and I can't go back
sleep. The thumbs are just a low-grade like a toothache all the time. If I try to pick
up a pencil it hurts. I put 22 years in the Army, I got metals out of Vietnam for valor.
I just thought unless you were doing some criminal act that police or border patrol they just couldn't treat you that way.
Let's hold the Border Patrol accountable.