PHOENIX – U.S. authorities combed rugged border terrain on Wednesday for clues into the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent who was shot and killed while responding to a tripped ground sensor in Arizona close to the border with Mexico.
Three agents were on foot about 5 miles (8 km) north of the border when gunfire erupted well before daybreak, killing agent Nicholas Ivie, 30, and wounding one of his male colleagues. The third agent, a woman, was unharmed.
“We’re still out there collecting evidence,” said Brenda Nath, a Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman in Phoenix, declining to say what had been found so far. “We’re still looking for suspects.”
The agents involved in the incident had been patrolling in an area well-known as a corridor for smuggling, and the Cochise County Sheriff’s department said that tracks were found heading south after the shooting.
The killing marked the fourth death of a Border Patrol agent in a violent confrontation in Arizona in less than two years and reignited concerns about border security in a state that is already at the forefront of the national immigration debate.
The violence drew sharp words from Republican Governor Jan Brewer, a vocal foe of President Barack Obama’s administration on immigration. She said it should lead to anger over “the federal failure and political stalemate that has left our border unsecured and our Border Patrol in harm’s way.”
The shooting took place near the border town of Naco, southeast of Tucson, which remains a corridor for smuggling marijuana and people, despite the construction of a tall, steel fence along the border.
Ivie, a border agent since 2008, was found dead at the scene. The wounded agent, who has not been publicly identified, sustained non-life-threatening injuries and has been released from the hospital, the border patrol said on Wednesday.
The agents were responding to a sensor, which picks up on movement or vibrations in areas authorities suspect are used by drug traffickers and illegal immigrants.
Across the border from Naco in a Mexican town of the same name, Mexican police said on Wednesday that a team of soldiers and federal and local police was searching for a suspect or suspects in Ivie’s death. (Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Claudia Parsons)