A retired FBI agent has been identified by his family as the man killed in a police shooting at Franklin High School during a confrontation with an El Paso Independent School District police officer.
Julio Cordero, 56, was a father of four and a decorated federal agent struggling with deteriorating mental health after retiring from the FBI, Cordero’s brother Marco Cordero told Channel 9-KTSM.
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The FBI El Paso Division confirmed Special Agent Julio Cordero served in the bureau from 1996 to 2019. “We are saddened at the loss of one of our own,” spokeswoman Special Agent Jeanette Harper said.
Cordero was the lead agent in Operation Poisoned Pawns, the 2007 public corruption investigation when the FBI raided the El Paso County Courthouse, resulting in dozens of convictions, including three former county judges, county commissioners, school board members and business people.
“He was a very respected lawman in the city. He made a big difference,” Marco Cordero told KTSM, explaining his brother’s mental health began declining after a suicidal man jumped in front of his car and died in 2014. The accident led to the resurfacing of memories of a crash that killed his sister in 1993.
After retirement, Cordero sometimes didn’t sleep for days, experienced paranoia and PTSD symptoms, would take medication, get better and would then stop and the cycle continued, KTSM reported.
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An EPISD police officer fatally shot Julio Cordero during a confrontation before 6 a.m. Thursday when Cordero was reportedly breaking windows before the start of classes at Franklin High School, where his family said his son is a senior.
EPISD and the El Paso Police Department have not publicly identified the man killed in the shooting on campus of the West Side school. Details about the confrontation have not been released.
The shooting is under investigation by the El Paso Police Department and Texas Rangers, as is standard in all fatal police shootings. EPISD is also conducting an administrative investigation into the case.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Retired FBI agent killed in EPISD police shooting at Franklin High
Source Agencies
