Video shows teen drinking lethal dose of liquid meth during border questioning

A recently released video shows a Tijuana teenager drinking a lethal dose of liquid methamphetamine while being questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.

Sixteen-year-old Cruz Marcelino Velazquez Acevedo died screaming and convulsing after he consumed the stimulant while in federal custody at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in November 2013. His family and the government agreed to a $1-million settlement in March.

Eugene Iredale, the attorney for the teenager’s family, said Velazquez was a high school student in Tijuana with no criminal record, and that it was believed that he was paid $100 to $200 to cross the border with the two bottles of drugs.

When Velazquez entered the country he told an officer he was headed to the United States to visit an uncle, and was sent to secondary screening by an officer, where he eventually drank the liquid.

He died less than three hours later in the emergency room at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center after taking as many as four sips of the amber liquid that he carried in two juice bottles in his knapsack. Claiming initially that it was apple juice that he had purchased in Mexico, Velazquez drank the liquid in the presence of two Customs and Border Protection officers, according to documents filed in federal court.

Excerpts from the video, included in a report by “ABC 20/20,” show Velazquez at a counter in front of the CBP agents taking sips from the bottles and later being strapped onto a stretcher to be taken to the hospital.

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