4 suspects detained in Mexico in US border agent killing

CHULA VISTA, Calif. – Mexican police announced the arrests Saturday of four men suspected of involvement in the killing of a U.S. Border Patrol agent as American investigators searched hospitals for gunmen who were possibly wounded in the first such shooting death in more than a decade.

Investigators said they have notified hospitals on both sides of the border to be alert for patients with suspicious or unexplained injuries. They said at least two people may have been wounded and left blood at the scene.

Agent Robert Rosas was killed Thursday while responding alone to a suspected border incursion near Campo, a town in rugged, arid terrain in southeastern San Diego County. He was shot in the head and body and was dead when other agents arrived, said Keith Slotter, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Diego bureau.

The men detained in Mexico are allegedly part of an immigrant smuggling ring, and 21 immigrants were found with them when police detained them and seized four guns near Tecate, said Elias Alvarez Hernandez, coordinator of federal police in Baja California state.

Alvarez also said at the news conference that one of the suspects told police that another man detained Friday with a handgun had shot Rosas. The Los Angeles Times reported police in Tecate said Friday they had arrested 36-year-old Ernesto Parra Valenzuela near the crime scene with a Border Patrol-issued weapon after the shooting. The man, who was injured, was taken to a hospital, according to a news release.

But FBI spokesman Darrell Foxworth told The Associated Press in a brief e-mail Saturday night that he could not confirm or comment on any arrest reports. The bureau did not return phone calls left throughout the day.

Mexico police did not say what evidence they had against the four, whom they identified as Jose Quintero Ruiz, 43, and his brother Jose Eugenio Quintero Ruiz, 49, and taxi drivers Jose Alfredo Camacho, 34, and Antonio Valladares, 57.

American officials have expressed concerns that the drug cartel battles plaguing Mexico could spill into the United States with the targeting of U.S. law enforcement officials. Slotter said investigators aren’t ruling out the possibility that Rosas was slain by drug smugglers or even human smugglers.

Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, said Mexican law enforcement agencies are cooperating in the case.

“This is a tragic example of the violence we keep facing at our common border as President (Felipe) Calderon continues to roll back transnational organized crime, and underscores the need for both our countries to keep working as full partners to guarantee the safety and security of those living on both sides of our border communities,” Sarukhan said in a written statement Saturday.