Actions that led to the death of a teenage drug smuggler at the hands of a couple of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers four years ago have come back to bite the pair. Footage of the 2013 chain of events was recently released to the public, and it shows the moments leading up to the fatal overdose 16-year-old Cruz Velazquez struggled through after he was told to drink from the bottles of liquid methamphetamine he was attempting to move into the U.S.
Officers Adrian Perallon and Valerie Baird are under fire for breaking from the conventional protocol of putting the substance through a test to identify it. Instead, the officers requested that he drink it to prove what he was carrying wasn't toxic. Velazquez would follow through and swig from the bottles, and within minutes he could barely stand and begins to scream in pain. Within two hours he was dead.
Until this day the officers contend that Velazquez volunteered to drink the liquid. Neither Perallon or Velazquez were ever brought up on charges.
