Cruz Velazquez was only 16 when a stranger handed down his death sentence. In many respects, he was a typical teenager. He studied, rising to the 10th grade at the local high school. He worked, helping his grandmother run the small business that supported his family. And he looked after his younger sister, Reyna, who relied on him after their parents separated. “He was kind of my dad,” Reyna said, “because since I was little he always helped me with homework, teach me sports, and everything he could.” Tijuana, however, where Velazquez lived, is not a typical place. For decades, the city has been an important staging ground for the multi-billion-dollar business of moving illegal drugs from South and Central America into the United States. It is home to warring cartels who conduct business in bloodshed: there were 910 homicides in Tijuana in 2016, and with 785 homicides documented so far this year, 2017 is on pace to be one of the most violent years in recent memory. “[Tijuana is] very important,” said Steve Gomez, a former FBI agent and ABC News consultant, who spent years working against the cartels. “[It’s] probably the most important city … for all of the cartels in Mexico.” At the start of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump accused Mexico of exporting drugs and the crime that follows in their wake. He has since pledged to “build a wall” between the United States and Mexico and announced plans to deputize thousands of new U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to police it. “We have some bad hombres here,” said Trump of those who have been allowed to pass through the country’s southern border, “and we’re going to get them out.” On the night of Nov. 18, 2013, Velazquez arrived the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the Western Hemisphere’s busiest land-border crossing. Government surveillance video obtained by ABC News of his encounter with border officers shows in gripping detail just how far officers would go as they questioned a young man caught between the powerful forces on opposite sides of the cross-border drug trade. That footage -- which aired for the first time on Good Morning America, World News Tonight with David Muir, 20/20 and Nightline -- sparked a year-long ABC News investigation of U.S. Customs and Border Protection with the non-profit Investigative Fund that revealed a history of cases in which the agency appeared to ignore accusations of mistreatment and abuse. “There is a clear history of agents and officers engaging in what I believe was serious misconduct, documented by my office, in many instances who received little or no discipline whatsoever as a result,” said James Tomsheck, the former head of internal affairs for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who has become a sharp critic of the agency after being ousted amid controversy. In response to the investigation, the agency issued a statement, saying, “CBP takes all allegations of mistreatment seriously, and does not tolerate actions that are not consistent with our core values of vigilance, service to country and integrity.” But for Velazquez, and for other young people, the consequences of that alleged misconduct were extreme, suggesting that at least some of the “bad hombres” are not the people crossing the border, but the people patrolling it. #BorderPatrol #CBP #Customs