At the Movies: HBO's Critical Incident
On December 29, HBO will premiere Critical Incident, a documentary that tells the story of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, a longtime U.S. resident and father of five who died in 2010 after U.S. Border agents tortured him. The film follows the efforts by U.S. Border Patrol to conceal what happened and the long, difficult struggle of Anastasio’s family for truth and justice. Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Clinic worked alongside the family and co-counsel, Alliance San Diego, on advocacy that culminated in a landmark decision by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Commission found the United States responsible for Anastasio’s racially motivated extrajudicial killing and ordered the government to reopen the criminal investigation and reform its laws to prevent future human rights violations.
Synopsis of the Documentary: CRITICAL INCIDENT revisits the 2010 death of Anastasio Hernández-Rojas, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who died while in custody at the border. When eye-witness video emerges, it sparks a far-reaching investigation from a border checkpoint to Washington D.C. CRITICAL INCIDENT chronicles journalists’, lawyers’, and family members’ efforts to explore the Border Patrol’s involvement in the incident, ultimately pointing to cover-ups, and uncovering the existence of a little-known unit inside the agency that had been involved in other border related incidents. In 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection disbanded the Critical Incident Teams, and the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights held a hearing on the Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas case, ultimately calling for the reopening of the case and recognizing that Hernandez-Rojas’ human rights had been violated during his arrest.
