WASHINGTON -- Federal investigators believe
that the fatal shooting of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie was the
result of friendly fire.
In a Friday night statement, the FBI said
that while an inquiry was continuing, "there are strong preliminary
indications that the death of.. Ivie and the injury to a second agent was the
result of an accidental shooting incident involving only the agents.''
The shootings on Tuesday about five miles
(eight kilometers) north of the border near Bisbee left one agent dead and
another wounded.
Ivie was shot and killed after he and two
other agents responded to an alarm triggered by a sensor aimed at detecting
smugglers and others entering the U.S. illegally.
The other agent was shot in the ankle and
buttocks but was released from the hospital after surgery. The third agent was
uninjured.
"While it is important to emphasize
that the FBI's investigation is actively continuing, there are strong
preliminary indications that the death of United States Border Patrol Agent
Nicholas J. Ivie and the injury to a second agent was the result of an
accidental shooting incident involving only the agents," FBI Special Agent
in Charge James L. Turgal Jr. said in a statement.
Turgal said the FBI is using "all
necessary investigative, forensic and analytical resources in the course of
this investigation." He did not elaborate.
A federal law enforcement official familiar
with the investigation said Friday that it appears the agents, while responding
to a tripped ground sensor near the U.S.- Mexico border early Wednesday, became
disoriented and were caught in their own fire.
David Klinger, a criminology professor at
the University of Missouri at St. Louis and an expert in police shootings, said
investigators trying to determine whether friendly fire occurred in a shooting
involving law enforcement would compare the ballistics of officers' guns with
bullet slugs that were either recovered from or passed through an officer's
body.
The officers involved in the case and any
known witnesses also would be asked to provide accounts of such a shooting
during interviews with investigators. And investigators would try to establish
where officers and witnesses were positioned at the time of the shooting,
Klinger said.
After a meeting of border governors Friday
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer stood by the criticism she
leveled earlier this week in response to the shooting in which she said a
political stalemate and the federal government's failures have left the border
unsecured and Border Patrol agents in harm's way.
"It's the federal government's
responsibility to secure our border, and they need to do that, and then we can
deal with all the other issues that have come about because our border hasn't
been secured," said Brewer, who plans to attend Ivie's memorial service
Monday in Sierra Vista.
The Border Patrol couldn't immediately
comment on the frequency of friendly fire shootings at the agency, but such
incidents appeared to be extremely rare.
Neither George McCubbin, president of the
National Border Patrol Council, nor Kent Lundgren, chairman of the National
Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, had ever heard of any friendly
fire incidents in the Border Patrol.
"I know of absolutely none in the
past, and my past goes back to 1968," Lundgren said, citing the year he
joined the Border Patrol. "I'm not saying it never happened. I'm just
saying I've never heard of it."
McCubbin has served in the Border Patrol
since 1985.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet
Napolitano came to Arizona on Friday to express her condolences to Ivie's
family and meet with law enforcement authorities in southern Arizona about the
investigation.
Turgal also said in the statement that the
FBI "extends our deepest sympathy and condolences to the family, friends
and co-workers of Nicholas Ivie and to our partners in the United States Border
Patrol."
Ivie's death prompted a massive search for
potential suspects in the remote corridor, a popular transit area for human
smugglers and drug traffickers, and near where fellow Agent Brian Terry was
slain in a gun battle with smugglers in 2010.
Terry's shooting helped expose a botched
gun trafficking operation in which federal investigators allowed 2,000 firearms
to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartel operatives and other criminals.
Authorities intended to track the guns into
Mexico. Two rifles found at the scene of Terry's shooting were bought by a
member of the gun-smuggling ring being investigated. Critics of the operation
say any shooting along the border now will raise the specter that those illegal
weapons are still being used.
Twenty-six Border Patrol agents have died
in the line of duty since 2002.
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