John Carlos Frey — Impact Timeline
April 20, 2012: “ Crossing the Line at the Border,” team reported with John Larson and Brian Epstein, airs on Need to Know on PBS and the Los Angeles Times publishes a coinciding article by Frey. The civil rights group Presente.org responds by launching a national petition drive citing the broadcast, which attracts
36,000 signatures
April 23 – May 2, 2012: The investigation makes national news, with Frey interviewed on CNN , MSNBC ,
NPR , Democracy Now!, and more
May 7, 2012: Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a former Border Patrol chief, writes to Attorney General Eric Holder calling for transparent investigations into border deaths
May 10, 2012: Sixteen members of Congress write to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the
Inspector General and Attorney General Eric Holder calling for investigations of the Border Patrol, citing
Frey’s PBS broadcast
July 12, 2012: AP reports that a federal grand jury has been convened to probe Hernandez’s death
July 26, 2012: Six members of Congress issue a public statement in response to Part II in the PBS Need to Know series “Crossing the Line at the Border,” expressing “grave concerns.”
October 17, 2012: The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General opens an investigation of the Border Patrol’s use of force
December 7, 2012: Customs and Border Protection (CBP) launches a comprehensive internal review of its use of force policy
May 2013: Following the publication of “ Over the Line ” in The Washington Monthly, Frey is interviewed on
Democracy Now!
and NPR’s Latino USA about the investigation
June 10, 2013: The New York Times does a follow-up story on A1 about Border Patrol cross-border shootings, linking back to Frey’s reporting
September 12, 2013: The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General releases its report , triggered by Frey’s investigations, which reveals for the first time CBP’s failure even to properly track incidents of excessive use of force. The report exposes a disturbing lack of oversight and recommends significant changes in CBP’s tracking, training, and protocols related to use of force
September 25, 2013: CBP announces that it has completed its internal audit and announces that it has committed to an overhaul of its use-of-force training, but refuses to make the review public

February 27, 2014: The Los Angeles Times is leaked a copy of the CBP audit and the Border Patrol’s response. The audit, which reviewed 67 shooting incidents involving Border Patrol agents, finds that
“agents have deliberately stepped in the path of cars apparently to justify shooting at the drivers and have fired in frustration at people throwing rocks from the Mexican side of the border.” In its response, the Border
Patrol rejects two key recommendations: “barring border agents from shooting at vehicles unless its occupants are trying to kill them, and barring agents from shooting people who throw things that can't cause serious physical injury.” www.theinvestigativefund.org