http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534 ... c/us/crime
4 Suspects Detained in Mexico in U.S. Border Agent's Death
Sunday, July 26, 2009


July 25: Police officers escort alleged smugglers from left to right, Eugenio Quintero, Jose Camacho, Eubidio Quintero and Antonio Balladares.



MEXICO CITY — Police in Mexico have announced the arrests of four men in connection to the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent as their counterparts in the United States search hospitals for suspects possibly wounded in the first such shooting in more than a decade.

The men detained in Mexico are allegedly part of an immigrant smuggling ring, and 21 people were found with them when police detained them and seized four guns near Tecate, Mexico, said Elias Alvarez Hernandez, coordinator of federal police in Baja California state.

During a news conference Saturday, Mexico police did not say what evidence they had against the four, whom they identified as Jose Quintero Ruiz, 43, and his brother Jose Eugenio Quintero Ruiz, 49, and taxi drivers Jose Alfredo Camacho, 34 and Antonio Valladares, 57.

Agent Robert Rosas was killed Thursday while responding alone to a suspected border incursion near Campo, a town in rugged, arid terrain in southeastern San Diego County. He was shot in the head and body and was dead when other agents arrived, said Keith Slotter, special agent in charge of the FBI's San Diego bureau.

Alvarez said that one of the suspects told police that a man detained Friday with a handgun had shot Rosas. Tecate police said Friday they had arrested 36-year-old Ernesto Parra Valenzuela near the crime scene with a Border Patrol-issued weapon after the shooting, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The man, who was injured, was taken to a hospital, according to a news release. Federal investigators have said they notified hospitals on both sides of the border to be on alert for patients with suspicious or unexplained injuries.

Investigators have said blood evidence at the scene indicated at least one culprit and possibly others had serious injuries, perhaps by gunfire. They didn't know how many shots were fired, if Rosas fired any shots himself, or how many guns were used.

But FBI spokesman Darrell Foxworth told The Associated Press in an e-mail late Saturday that he could not confirm or comment on any arrest reports. The bureau did not return calls left throughout the day.

American officials have expressed concerns that the drug cartel battles plaguing Mexico could spill into the United States with the targeting of U.S. law enforcement officials. Slotter said investigators aren't ruling out the possibility that Rosas was slain by drug smugglers or even human smugglers.




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