Undercover FBI Agent, Drug Suspect Are Killed in Shooting

As backup agents waited nearby, an FBI agent trying to buy drugs in an undercover operation on the waterfront was fatally shot in his car Friday along with a suspected drug dealer.

“They killed each other,” FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said late Friday at the agency’s Philadelphia office. Tired, with red-rimmed eyes, he stood in front of an FBI seal draped with a black ribbon.

Charles L. Reed, a 16-year FBI veteran, wore a hidden microphone to record the meeting with the suspected drug dealer, 24-year-old Jonathan Cramer, in the parking lot of a Comfort Inn.

He was in the back seat of his gray Mercedes-Benz on the passenger side, and Cramer was in front on the passenger side. A third person, about whom Freeh would say nothing, was in the driver’s seat.

Backup agents were waiting several hundred feet away and had little chance to intervene.

The agent was negotiating over a kilogram of cocaine, unidentified sources told WPVI-TV. But Freeh also said no drugs were recovered.

“It’s a sad day for the FBI in Philadelphia,” said Bob Reutter, the FBI’s agent in charge of the Philadelphia office.

Reed, 45, of Lansdale, Pa., was the father of three.

“This was an extraordinary, committed agent who never said no, who worked harder than anyone in this division,” Freeh said.