Synopsis

In 1997, U.S. Marines patrolling the Texas-Mexico border as part of the War on Drugs fatally shot Esequiel Hernández Jr. Mistaken for a drug runner, the eighteen-year-old was, in reality, an American citizen tending his family’s goats with a .22 rifle. His death marked the first time an American had been killed by U.S. military forces on American soil since the Kent State shootings of the 1970s. *The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández*, narrated by Tommy Lee Jones, recounts Hernandez's tragic demise a