Border Patrol Agent Killed in Early Morning Crash


03-30-08 at 5:37PM

The U.S. Border Patrol reported that a 28-year-old agent died early Sunday after a single-vehicle crash near Dulzura in East County.

The agent was identified by the county Medical Examiner's Office as Jared Dittman of San Diego. But the U.S. Border Patrol had not publicly confirmed his identity by early Sunday afternoon.

Another agent discovered the wreck just before 1 a.m. on Otay Lakes Road near state Route 94, said Richard Smith, a supervisory agent for the U.S. Border Patrol.

Emergency crews took the victim to the hospital with multiple injuries. He was pronounced dead at about 2 a.m., Smith said.

The agent had begun his shift at midnight and had been patrolling in his Jeep Wrangler. Smith said he had no details on the cause of the crash, which was being investigated by the California Highway Patrol.

Otay Lakes Road is a curving county highway between Chula Vista and Campo. It is the first pavement north of the border and is heavily-used by both smugglers and Border Patrol agents.

The agent was married and had a young daughter, Smith said. He was originally from Pennsylvania and had been working as a Border Patrol agent for just over a year.

Smith said the latest death comes as the U.S. Border Patrol just unveiled a memorial last Friday in honor of the last agent to die locally in the line of duty, 31-year-old Eric Cabral.

Cabral, a San Diego native, suffered a fatal heart attack in July 2007 as the result of heat exposure while he and another agent were tracking a group of illegal aliens north of Interstate 8 near Jacumba.

Luis Aguilar, a Border Patrol agent stationed in Yuma, was killed Jan. 19 in the extreme southeastern corner of California when smugglers drove over him in the sand dunes of Imperial County.

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