Seven detained after Coast Guard shoots out boat’s engine

Seven Mexican men were taken into custody after the boat they were on ran into a Coast Guard vessel after trying to outrun it Sunday evening, officials said. The crew shot out the engine to stop the fleeing boat.

About 5:10 p.m. the crew spotted a 25-foot cuddy cabin boat in the ocean about 7 miles off Mission Bay, the Coast Guard said in a news release.

The boat appeared to be disabled. But when the Coast Guard approached on a 45-foot response boat, authorities said, the cuddy cabin boat began racing south to evade arrest.

The Coast Guard crew fired warning shots, but the boat kept going, so the crew fired 15 pepper-ball rounds. The smaller boat then “rammed” the Coast Guard boat, causing cosmetic damage, authorities said.

The crew then fired three rounds into the starboard engine, disabling the boat about four miles southwest of Point Loma.

Authorities said no one was seriously injured, but some of the men on the boat “experienced minor irritation” from the pepper-ball rounds.

The Coast Guard said all seven men aboard the boat were handed over to Department of Homeland Security.