Texas Rangers, FBI investigate: 1 migrant dead, 2 wounded in Hudspeth County shootings




Daniel Borunda, El Paso Times
Thu, September 29, 2022 at 5:19 PM




The Texas Rangers, FBI agents and local sheriff's deputies are investigating a violent 24 hours in Hudspeth County that left an undocumented migrant dead and two other people wounded in shootings in the sparse desert east of El Paso.

One migrant was killed and another was wounded in a shooting involving a group of undocumented migrants Tuesday evening in the desert near Sierra Blanca, the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety said.

The Sierra Blanca case was followed by a shooting along Interstate 10 near Fort Hancock late Wednesday morning. It was unclear if the two incidents were interconnected as the multi-agency investigation continued Thursday.

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Texas DPS investigators arrested 26-year-old Erick Garibaldi of Fort Hancock, who is accused of shooting a man found along Interstate 10 with a gunshot wound to the face outside the town located about a half-hour east of El Paso, officials said Thursday.

A state trooper was on patrol at about 11 a.m. Wednesday heading east on Interstate 10 when the trooper saw three men in the center median of the highway, DPS said in a statement.

Two of the men were waving their arms seeking help, while the third man "was kneeling down with a gunshot wound to his face," a DPS stated.







A Texas Department of Public Safety vehicle. File photo.

The trooper checked on the wounded man and summoned an ambulance and assistance from the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office after learning the direction the suspected shooter was headed, officials said.

The Texas Rangers began an investigation and the U.S. Border Patrol also began searching for Garibaldi while the wounded man was transported to Del Sol Medical Center in East El Paso.
A search for the shooter caused schools in the small town of Fort Hancock to go into a security lockdown as a precaution.

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Garibaldi was later located and taken into custody with the assistance of a Texas DPS helicopter and Hudspeth County sheriff's deputies, Border Patrol agents, the FBI and DPS investigators.

A motive in the shooting in Fort Hancock and whether it's linked to the homicide outside of Sierra Blanca has not been disclosed as the multi-agency investigation continues.

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Fort Hancock is in Hudspeth County about 40 miles east of El Paso.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Texas Rangers, FBI investigate: 1 dead, 2 wounded in Hudspeth County



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