Tucson Region

Border Patrol agent killed in rollover

THREE POINTS - A U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed in a single-vehicle accident Sunday afternoon. The 32-year-old man died in a rollover accident about 2 p.m. on Federal Route 21 near Pisinimo Village on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, said Rob Daniels, a spokesman for the agency's Tucson sector. The accident is still under investigation, but officials believe the agent was heading back to the Casa Grande station when he lost control. No other vehicles were involved, Daniels said. The agent's name was not released by late Sunday night. "Without a doubt, anything like this affects the entire patrol," said Daniels. Agents have been injured, but deaths along the Arizona border are rare. In June, two Border Patrol agents died in an apparent murder-suicide south of Tucson. They were from the El Paso Sector in Texas. In December 2003, an agent from the Yuma Sector died in the Colorado River trying to save a drowning immigrant. In February the same year, an off-duty Border Patrol agent was beaten to death south of Cananea, Sonora, after three Mexican men he befriended and drank with learned he was a federal agent.