SIERRA VISTA — Recent tactics of drug smugglers ramming federal police vehicles led an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent to shoot a suspected international drug-runner Thursday on Geronimo Road near the border city of Douglas.
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The incident happened about 1:47 p.m. around mile post four on Geronimo Road, she said.
“This occurred in the midst of an ongoing investigation into a narcotics smuggling operation that we have been cooperating with the Border Patrol and the Douglas Police Department on,” ICE spokesman Vincent Picard said Thursday night. “We’ve had several incidents over the last couple of days with drug smugglers ramming law enforcement vehicles in their attempts to get across the border.”
He called the vehicle rammings “certainly a disturbing tactic.”
“That occurred again today. A suspected drug smuggler was attempting to get back across the border and ended up ramming a Border Patrol vehicle. An ICE special agent was concerned that the lives of the agents in that Border Patrol vehicle were in danger, and he was also concerned for his own safety and so he shot the driver of the vehicle.”
Following the incident, the man was airlifted to University Medical Center in Tucson for treatment, Picard said. The collaborative interagency narcotics smuggling operation continues, as well as the internal investigation into the shooting, he said.
Picard said he was not certain whether the Border Patrol personnel in the truck that got rammed were injured, or whether any other federal agents or any more suspected drug smugglers were injured.
A telephone caller to the Wick News Service at press time indicated Geronimo Road was closed as of 7 p.m.
Comments
justme wrote on Oct 31, 2007 3:45 AM:
class of 09 wrote on Oct 30, 2007 10:09 AM:
Frank Ortegoza wrote on Oct 28, 2007 8:53 PM: