Sunday, October 07, 2012

Probe of border-shooting scene complete

Investigators have completed their work at the scene of the Border Patrol shooting in which one agent died and another was wounded last week. By Saturday, investigators had reopened the area, a rough hillside about six miles east of Bisbee, that is fully accessible only by foot or horseback. The FBI investigation continues, as does a related investigation by the Cochise County Sheriff's Office. On Friday, the FBI announced that there are strong indications that Agent Nicholas Ivie, 30, died in a friendly-fire incident about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. Acting Sheriff Rodney Rothrock told The Arizona Republic that, while he will submit findings and a report to the County Attorney's Office for review, "I don't anticipate, personally, that the county attorney's office is going to take any action in this matter (against the wounded agent or another uninjured agent). ... To be guilty of committing a crime, you have to have intent or operate knowingly or recklessly or with negligence. "I don't think the culpable state of mind was there. These agents believed they were in danger and acted appropriately to that danger," Rothrock said. Meanwhile, in Agua Prieta, across the border from Douglas, Ariz., a Mexican federal police official said that two Mexicans who initially had been suspected of involvement in the shooting have been questioned and are now in custody in Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora. The official, who declined to give his name when interviewed in Agua Prieta, said that the two men, cousins from Agua Prieta, were caught with a .38 caliber revolver and large packages of marijuana several miles south of the U.S. border roughly 15 hours after Ivie was killed. The Mexican ambassador in Washington, D.C., had described the men as suspects in the shooting but has not provided an update on whether they are still considered suspects...more

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