Union boss: Friendly fire possibility in shooting (two U.S. Border Patrol agents )

Source: AP-Excite

By JACQUES BILLEAUD and PETE YOST

PHOENIX (AP) - The shooting of two U.S. Border Patrol agents near the Arizona-Mexico border may have been a case of friendly fire, a union chief for border agents and law enforcement officials said Friday.

The development could shake up the investigation into the death of one of the agents that re-ignited the political debate over security on the border.

George McCubbin, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing about 17,000 border agents, said Friday that he has learned new details that make him believe friendly fire could have played a part in the shooting.

"The only thing I can say is that the possibility of friendly fire is a higher likely scenario," McCubbin said, declining to elaborate on the new details.

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Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20121005/DA1NJ43O1.html

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Family members of Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie participate in Thursday Oct. 4, 2012 candlelight ceremony in Naco, Arizona. Nearly 100 people gathered in Naco for a candlelight vigil for a fallen Border Patrol agent. Ivie and two other border agents were fired upon Tuesday in a rugged hilly area about five miles (eight kilometers) north of the border near Bisbee, Ariz., as they responded to an alarm that was triggered on one of the sensors that the government has installed along the border. (AP Photo/Beatrice Richardson, Sierra Vista Herald)