MIAMI — A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent, teaching a gun instruction class at a West Miami-Dade County gun range, was shot Wednesday morning and was pronounced dead at the hospital where doctors were unable to revive him.
Details of the shooting weren’t immediately clear but sources familiar with the incident said it was accidental.
CBP Spokeswoman Rachel Torres confirmed one of her agents had been shot at the range and died of his injuries at the hospital.
“We did have a CBP officer critically wounded this morning. He was teaching a class,” she said.
Several law enforcement sources familiar with the shooting say the agent killed was Jorge Arias, 35. He was struck by a single round in the chest while teaching a class. Though Torres wouldn’t confirm that it was Arias who was killed, she did say the family of the agent who succumbed to the gunshot wound had been notified of his death.
Arias was killed at a section of the range portioned off for law enforcement. It’s typical for Customs and Border Protection to use the facility on Wednesdays. The agent’s death drew a large procession at Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center, where he was airlifted after the shooting.
CBP Spokesman Michael Silva, without naming Arias, said he was a good family man.
Miami-Dade Police have released very little information on the shooting, which happened at Trail Glades Range, near the intersection of Krome Avenue and Tamiami Trail, just before 11 a.m. They released a brief statement on the incident early Wednesday afternoon saying an adult male with a gunshot wound was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. The property is owned by Miami-Dade County, which will lead the investigation into the agent’s death.
A Miami-Dade Police spokesman said investigators are “not discarding any possibilities” while looking into the agent’s death. Miami-Dade Police, who are overseeing the shooting investigation, also said the agent was killed in the line of duty. That makes Arias the third South Florida law enforcement officer to die while on duty in the past two months.
Miami-Dade Police Detective Cesar “Echy” Echaverry died Aug. 18, two days after a shootout in Liberty City with a armed robbery suspect, who was killed by returned fire. Echaverry was the first member of the department’s elite Robbery Intervention Detail to be killed on duty. And Jose Perez, a special agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, died Aug. 20, almost three weeks after getting into a car accident while responding to a building alarm.
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