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AG: U.S. Shooting of Mexican Teen "Regrettable"

Attorney General Eric Holder says the fatal shooting of a Mexican teenager by a U.S. Border Patrol agent on the banks of the Rio Grande was "extremely regrettable."

The attorney general told reporters Thursday that the FBI is investigating the shooting of 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka on Monday beside a railroad bridge connecting Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. Holder says the agency also is investigating the death of Anastasio Hernandez, who died Saturday after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer shocked him with a stun gun at a border crossing near San Diego.

The two deaths have caused outrage in Mexico.

Mexican security forces chased away U.S. authorities investigating the shooting, the FBI and witnesses said Wednesday.

Holder says that Mexico and the U.S. have shared interests and "that is what will continue to keep this relationship strong."

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday that his government "will use all resources available to protect the rights of Mexican migrants."

The government "reiterates its rejection to the disproportionate use of force on the part on U.S. authorities on the border with Mexico," the president added in a statement.

On an unpaved street, gathered around Hernandez's gray metal casket, the teen's family called for justice.

"There is a God, so why would I want vengeance if no one will return him to me. They killed my little boy and the only thing I ask is for the law" to be applied, said the boy's father, Jesus Hernandez.

His mother was less hopeful. "May God forgive them because I know nothing will happen" to them, Maria Guadalupe Huereka said.

Above the casket was a photo of the youth wearing his soccer uniform and his junior high school grade cards, which showed A's and B's.

His mother said he was a good student who never got in trouble. He was the youngest of five children, played on two soccer teams and had just finished junior high school, she said.

The case took a testy turn when U.S. and Mexican officials traded suggestions of misconduct in the incident.

Chihuahua state officials released a statement demanding a full investigation into the death.

The boy's sister, Rosario, told Associated Press Television News that her brother was playing with several friends and did not plan to cross the border.

"They say that they started firing from over there and suddenly hit him in the head," she said.

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