The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) arrested a Mississippi man after finding 17 illegal immigrants crammed inside a false compartment of a “cloned” home improvement store box truck in Kinney County, according to police bodycam footage.
Cezanne Megel Patterson, 28, of Jackson, Mississippi, was arrested and charged with human smuggling with the likelihood of serious bodily injury or death.
The DPS said in a press release that one of its troopers conducted a traffic stop on what appeared to be a Lowe’s Home Improvement store delivery truck outside of Del Rio, Texas, on US-277, near the southern border during the early morning hours on Friday.
After stopping the truck, the trooper interviewed Patterson and noticed he was demonstrating “strange behavior” and had multiple discrepancies with his travel itinerary, including expired tags on the truck, DPS said.
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Patterson consented to a search of the truck, and when troopers went inside the cargo area, they found a false compartment toward the front.
Using crowbars and other tools, the troopers opened the compartment and found 17 illegal immigrants crammed inside the 3-foot-wide space, which lacked ventilation.
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Video released by DPS showed the migrants in various positions to maximize the number of people inside the tiny space.
DPS said the migrants consisted of four females and 13 males from Columbia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
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All 17 of the migrants were told to get out of the compartment one at a time and to sit inside the box truck with their legs crossed.
They were also treated for dehydration before being referred to Border Patrol.
Patterson was ultimately charged with human smuggling with the likelihood of causing serious bodily injury or death. He was taken to the Val Verde processing center.
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