Border agent wounds man near Gila Bend: 2nd such incident this week, at least 9th since Jan. '10

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and injured a man Tuesday evening south of Gila Bend.

It was the latest in a series of shootings by border agents in Arizona - the second this week, the fourth since Oct. 2 and at least the ninth since January 2010.

In this case, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported, Yuma Sector agents responded to possible bandit activity near a checkpoint on Arizona 85.

The agents came across two armed men about 14 miles southwest of Gila Bend, and at least one of the agents fired, hitting one of the armed men, the agency said in a news release.

That man was flown to a Phoenix hospital and is in stable condition; the other man, a Mexican national illegally in the country, was arrested. Agents found a handgun and an assault rifle at the scene, the news release said.

The FBI is investigating.

On Sunday at midday, an agent working in the southern Baboquivari Mountains on the Tohono O'odham Nation shot and killed a man whom the agency described as getting into an altercation with the agent.

Neither Mexican consular officials nor the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office knew the identities of either man shot in this week's incidents.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/border-agent-wounds-man-near-gila-bend/article_1da78974-695c-56ea-b1f3-c06f56cd44e3.html