By Steve Neavling
A CBP agent was killed and two other agents were wounded Thursday in a shootout with suspected smugglers aboard a vessel off the coast of Puerto Rico.
The three marine interdiction agents approached the vessel while on patrol.
“As soon as they approached the vessel, those individuals started to shoot and the agents shot back,” CBP spokesman Jeffrey Quiñones told reporters, according to The New York Times.
The agents were airlifted to a hospital in Puerto Rico by CBP and the Coast Guard with “various gunshot injuries.”
One of the agents later died from gunshot wounds.
“These are brave members of our air and marine operations within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, so the difficulty of this job cannot be compared to the difficulty that our frontline personnel face every day,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in testimony before a Senate committee on Thursday. “And their bravery and selfless service should be recognized.”
A person aboard the suspected smuggling vessel was fatally shot in the shootout.
The identities of the people aboard the vessel were not immediately known.
Authorities arrested the sole survivor on the vessel.
The FBI is investigating.
