BISBEE, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities have identified the Border Patrol agent who was shot to death overnight in Arizona near the U.S. border with Mexico as 30-year-old Nicolas Ivie.
A second agent who was wounded by the gunfire has not been identified.
It's the first fatal shooting of an agent since a deadly firefight with Mexican bandits two years ago that prompted Congress to look into a botched government gun-smuggling investigation.
Critics of "Operation Fast and Furious" say any time there's a shooting along the border now, it will raise the question of whether the weapons that were supposed to be tracked in that investigation are still being used in border violence.
The FBI, which is investigating today's shooting, isn't saying whether investigators have recovered guns or bullet casings at the scene.
Authorities have set up a checkpoint on a dirt road. Agents at the checkpoint are declining to comment, and they're keeping reporters from going past. Two helicopters from federal immigration agencies could be seen circling the area.
%@AP Links
157-a-15-(George McCubbin, president, National Border Patrol Council, a union that represents thousands of Border Patrol agents, in AP interview)-"family pretty hard"-National Border Patrol Council President George McCubbin says the agents were assigned to a station named after the last border patrol agent killed on duty. (2 Oct 2012)
<<CUT *157 (10/02/12)>> 00:15 "family pretty hard"
154-a-13-(George McCubbin, president, National Border Patrol Council, a union that represents thousands of Border Patrol agents, in AP interview)-"his lower backside"-National Border Patrol Council President George McCubbin says two agents were shot. (2 Oct 2012)
<<CUT *154 (10/02/12)>> 00:13 "his lower backside"
APPHOTO AZTUS102: Det. Bill Silva, left, with the Bisbee Police Department, and an unnamed agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration patrol a fence line east of Naco, Ariz., after a Border Patrol agent was killed early Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012. The shooting occurred after an alarm was triggered on one of the thousands of sensors placed by the U.S. government along the border, and the agents went to investigate, said Cochise County Sheriff's spokeswoman Carol Capas. (AP Photo/Arizona Daily Star, Mike Christy) NO MAGS NO SALES, MANDATORY CREDIT (2 Oct 2012)
<<APPHOTO AZTUS102 (10/02/12)>>
APPHOTO GFX717: Map locates Bisbee Arizona, where a Border Patrol agent is fatally shot and another is wounded. (2 Oct 2012)
<<APPHOTO GFX717 (10/02/12)>>
