Murder of Javier Vega Jr.
2014 murder of U.S. Border Patrol guard
Javier Vega Jr. (June 17, 1978 – August 3, 2014) was an agent of the United States Border Patrol who was shot dead by Gustavo Tijerina Sandoval, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, near Santa Monica, Texas, on August 3, 2014. His killer was sentenced to the death penalty, and Vega was honored as the namesake of a street in La Feria, Texas, and a Border Patrol checkpoint in Sarita, Texas.
Early life
Vega was born on June 17, 1978, in La Feria, Cameron County, Texas. Prior to joining the Border Patrol, Vega had served in the United States Marine Corps. He was married, and he had three children.
Vega served in the Border Patrol from February 11, 2008, to August 3, 2014.
Murder and convictions
While on an off-duty trip near Santa Monica in Willacy County, Texas, with his wife, children and parents, Vega was shot in the chest by Gustavo Tijerina Sandoval (born December 12, 1983), an illegal immigrant from Mexico, who also shot his father, Javier Vega Sr., in the hip. Tijerina Sandoval got into his car with an accomplice and drove away. Vega's father shot back at the two men's car, who continued to drive for a few miles until their car broke down.
“Murder of Javier Vega Jr.” enters the record as 2014 murder of U.S. Border Patrol guard. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Murder, Javier and Vega can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q65965681. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1978, 2014, 2008 and 1983.
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This entry incorporates text from “Murder of Javier Vega Jr.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.