Coast Guardsman Killed When Suspected Smuggling Panga Rams Law Enforcement Boat off Channel Islands

One Coast Guardsman lost his life and another was injured in the early hours off Southern California’s Channel Islands when a suspected drug-smuggling panga deliberately rammed a rigid-hull inflatable boat (RIB) carrying a law enforcement boarding team. The collision occurred in darkness near Santa Cruz Island and left Chief Boatswain’s Mate Terrell Horne III, 34, fatally wounded.

Horne, the executive officer aboard the 87-foot cutter Halibut, died of a traumatic head injury after the 30-foot panga struck the RIB, throwing him and another team member into the water. The other Guardsman aboard the RIB, identified as Petty Officer Brandon Langdon, suffered a laceration to his knee. Both men were also struck by a propeller during the collision and were recovered from the water and transported to the Halibut, which rushed them to Port Hueneme. Medics later pronounced Horne dead.

Two Mexican nationals, identified in a federal complaint as Jose Meija-Leyva (the alleged captain) and Manuel Beltran-Higuera, were charged on Dec. 3 with killing a federal officer while the officer was performing official duties. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, both were ordered held without bond. A preliminary hearing and subsequent arraignment were scheduled later in December.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our shipmate,” said Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert J. Papp in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends and his shipmates. Our fallen shipmate stood the watch on the front lines protecting our nation, and we are all indebted to him for his service and sacrifice.”

11th Coast Guard District spokesman Adam Eggers called the encounter unusually violent for the area. “Usually these things are pretty benign,” Eggers said, adding that he could not recall a similar fatality in a confrontation with drug traffickers off California.

The sequence of events began late on Dec. 1, when a Coast Guard C-130 aircraft spotted a dark, unlit pleasure boat about a mile off Smugglers Cove on Santa Cruz Island. A Halibut boarding team went aboard that vessel and detained two crew members on suspicion of drug smuggling, according to the federal complaint. Shortly afterward the C-130 detected a 30-foot panga — a flat-bottomed, outboard-powered open fishing boat commonly used in maritime smuggling — stopped without lights in Smugglers Cove.

The Halibut launched its 21-foot RIB with a four-person law enforcement team. At about 1:20 a.m. the RIB located the panga roughly 200 yards from the island’s eastern shoreline. The RIB approached to within about 20 yards, activated a blue law enforcement light and ordered the panga’s two occupants to surrender. With weapons drawn, the crew shouted, “Stop, police! Put your hands up!” The panga’s engines accelerated instead of complying, and it bore down on the RIB.

As the helmsman attempted to steer clear, another member of the boarding team fired several rounds at the panga. The aggressor craft struck the RIB on the port forward side, ejecting Horne and Langdon into the water. Crew aboard the RIB promptly recovered both men and transferred them back to the cutter Halibut for emergency care, but Horne succumbed to his injuries.

Following the collision the panga fled south toward the Mexican border. The C-130 maintained visual contact while a Coast Guard helicopter and a 45-foot response boat joined the pursuit. The panga stopped twice, reportedly to switch fuel bladders, then sped away each time as Coast Guard assets closed in. About 5 a.m., roughly 20 miles north of the border, the panga stopped a third time. Coast Guard personnel came alongside, deployed pepper spray to subdue Meija-Leyva and Beltran-Higuera, boarded the vessel and took the suspects into custody, ending the chase.

Officials say these cat-and-mouse encounters have become more common along the Southern California coast as federal, state and local agencies step up patrols and enforcement actions along the U.S.-Mexico maritime approaches. In testimony before Congress, James A. Dinkins, an associate director for investigations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), described how smugglers have adapted by moving further offshore and then traveling north along the coast before attempting to run cargo ashore.

ICE and other agencies report interdictions of pangas carrying drugs or migrants as far north as San Luis Obispo County, nearly 150 miles north of Los Angeles. In one September incident federal authorities arrested 10 Mexican nationals and three U.S. citizens in connection with a failed attempt to land roughly 1.5 tons of marijuana on the central California coast. Through early September of that enforcement year, ICE said maritime interdictions in Southern California resulted in the seizure of more than 114,000 pounds of narcotics.

Horne had served in the Coast Guard for 14 years, with previous assignments at Emerald Isle, Humboldt Bay and Charleston stations and aboard the cutter Dallas. “Throughout his Coast Guard service, BMC Horne’s professionalism and commitment, like those before him, ensured that we were always ready to answer the nation’s call,” Adm. Papp said in a message to Coast Guard personnel following Horne’s death.

February 2013 issue.