SAN DIEGO (Border Patrol) — Olympic swimmer Shaine Casas wasn’t even 4 years old when his father, U.S. Border Patrol Agent James Epling, drowned in the Colorado River while trying to catch a group of smugglers and migrants.
Casas went on to have a successful career in swimming, competing at highest levels. He qualified for the Olympics and represented Team USA in the Paris Games this week. But he’s also become a source of pride for the border agents and officers who worked with his father.
Epling died on Dec. 16, 2003, near the town of Andrade, on the California side of the river just west of Yuma, Arizona.
“As I understand it, he heard people screaming and maybe people struggling in the water,” said Abel Holguín, a retired U.S. Customs and Border Protection investigator. “He entered the water, and somehow ended up rescuing a lady, perhaps more than one and then continued efforts to apprehend the suspect.”
An infrared camera and operator across the river monitored Epling’s movements as he followed the group into the river, never to be seen again.
“He disappeared, everybody starts looking for him, everybody is calling out his name and eventually it became a rescue,” Holguín said.
Law enforcement from throughout the region was mobilized as a massive search got underway.
One of the agents called in to help search for Epling was Tyler Emblem who was part of a newly formed swift-water rescue team.
“It weighed pretty heavy on us, it still does,” said Emblem, who continues to work for the Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector.
“I remember looking for signs of him holding on to the reeds, calling his name out, but after repeated passes by our team floating down by the reeds, we realized it was probably less likely we were going to find him.”
Epling’s body was recovered three days later by a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Dive Team 29 feet below the surface of the river.
“It was in an area where there was a sort of whirlpool, he just couldn’t overcome that,” said Emblem. “It was shortly before Christmas, it affected everybody massively, we still think of the Epling family to this day.”
The family lives in the border town of McAllen, Texas where Casas grew up and attended McAllen High School.
In the days leading up to the 2024 Paris Olympics, their home and a local rec center were decorated by friends and supporters with Olympic flags and posters with Casas’ name.
Although Casas was only about to turn 4 years old at the time of Epling’s death, his overwhelming success as a swimmer and making the U.S. Olympic team has provided a sense of closure for fellow Border Patrol agents, especially Holguín and Emblem.
“I’m sure he’d be really proud of him,” Holguín said.
Emblem added that to them, whether or not Casas wins a medal, it really doesn’t matter.
“I’m sure it matters to him if he wins a gold, but to us, it represents something bigger than that,” Emblem said. “All of us in the law enforcement community, whether he sees us or not, have a lot of pride in his accomplishments as a man and individual, that is bigger and better.”
There is now a memorial near the area where Epling parked his truck before going in the water and disappearing.
It’s in the shape of an obelisk with his name and “end of watch” date of December 19, 2003.
Holguín had not visited the area in many years and became overwhelmed with emotion as he talked about Epling, or Jimmy as he was called by those who knew and worked with him.
“It was the worst case scenario, it was a nightmare,” he said.
Casas’ quest for a medal in Paris ended on Thursday. He competed in the men’s 200-meter individual medley, and qualified for the semifinals, but he placed ninth, missing the final spot by less than seven tenths of a second.