A shooting Tuesday morning near the United States-Mexico border in southern Arizona has left one US Border Patrol agent dead and another agent wounded.
The shooting happened while the agents, along with a third agent who was unharmed, were patrolling the border on horseback in Naco, Arizona around 1:50 a.m. MST, the Border Patrol said in a statement.
The agents were shot after they responded to an alarm that had been triggered by one of the sensors located along the border, according to Carol Capas, Cochise County Sheriff’s spokeswoman.
No suspects have been identified and authorities are unsure if the agents returned fire, Capas said.
The wounded agent received non-life-threatening injuries and was airlifted to a hospital.
Authorities have not released the names of the agents, who were assigned to a station that was recently renamed the Brian Terry Station in honor of a US Border Patrol agent killed in a shootout with Mexican outlaws in December 2010 not far from Tuesday’s shooting.
Terry’s murder brought attention to a botched undercover gun smuggling investigation conducted by the US government called “Operation Fast and Furious.” Two guns found at the scene of Terry’s murder were weapons that US firearms agents were tracking and were linked to the undercover operation that allowed about 2,000 guns to fall into the hands of Mexican gang members and other criminals.
