Two U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents were injured and a third was killed during an early Thursday morning high seas shootout with suspected smugglers 14 miles off Puerto Rico’s southwest coast.
“Everyone is dismayed,” Jeffrey Quinones, a CBP spokesman in Puerto Rico told a Miami Herald reporter, “You go out to do your job and did not have the prospect of this happening.”
Quinones said that the agents, who belong to the Air and Marine Operations unit — which patrols the oceans for drug and weapons trafficking and illegal migrant voyages — were on a routine boat patrol Thursday morning when they approached a suspect vessel.
