Deputy shooting draws attention to smugglers
Posted: May 02, 2010 6:40 PM CDT
Updated: May 02, 2010 6:40 PM CDT

Reporter: Linda Garrett

CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (KGUN9-TV) - It's been more than 24 hours since a group of suspected smugglers opened fire on a sheriff's deputy on patrol by himself in Pinal County.

Authorities took 17 suspected illegal immigrants into custody Saturday and have detained three of them as persons of interest in the shooting. All were believed to be undocumented immigrants.

Deputy Louie Puroll, 53, was on patrol tracking smugglers in the desert southwest of casa Grande when he was shot by an AK-47-type rifle, said Tami Villar, a spokeswoman for the Pinal County Sheriff's Office.

Puroll was not seriously hurt. It took authorities an hour to locate him in the remote area. He was airlifted to a hospital where his skin wound above a kidney was treated. He was released from a hospital on Saturday in good condition.

KGUN9 traveled to the crime scene Saturday. It was an all-out manhunt. Hundreds of officers from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies spent much of Saturday scouring a 10-mile area about 50 miles south of Phoenix.

David Alan Bush said he lives several miles from where the shooting took place. He said the area has been a known drug-smuggling route for years but that the problem is getting worse.

Neighbors who live nearby said the illegal immigrants and drug smugglers often pop out of the wash behind their homes and use the area as a place to change their clothes before they hit the road. You can see shoes, soda cans and t-shirts, water bottles - all kinds of trash left behind.

Before this incident, Bush said he's often call authorities but they'd rarely show up. Now he's hoping the increase in violence will force law enforcement to take more action in the area.

"I hope it doesn't happen again," he said.


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