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Undercover
Federal
Narc
Shoots
Teen
Holding
Candy
Bar
11/15/97
A federal undercover agent working on a "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force" in Queens, NY, shot a local high school student when he mistook a candy bar in the youth's hand for a gun. 17 year-old Andre Burgess, captain of the Hillcrest High School soccer team, was walking down 138th street in Laurelton, Queens, when the carload of Federal agents rolled by and one officer, identified by the New York Daily News as William Cannon, jumped out. Cannon apparently identified himself, but, according to Burgess, gave the teen no time to react. "I turned to see what was up, and boom, I'm hit, and I fell to the ground." Burgess also described the callousness with which the incident was handled even after it was discovered that he had been unarmed and apparently wholly uninvolved in any criminal activity. "I'm laying there, bleeding, waiting to go the hospital, and he's shaking hands with the other cops, or agents, or whatever they were," he said. "He asked one of them, 'Don't I know you from some other case?' And I'm still lying there." DRCNet Executive Director David Borden commented, "The incident is reminiscent of the Esequiel Hernandez killing in Redford, Texas, by U.S. Marines. In neither case did the aggressors provide appropriate medical assistance to their victims. Fortunately, Burgess was not fatally wounded. But then, this is only the one incident out of many that happened to get some press." [Source: New York Times, 11/8]
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