Border Patrol agent shoots and kills a man after struggle

An undercover U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed a man Thursday morning after a fierce struggle in an Escondido parking lot that was being used in a suspected human smuggling operation, authorities said.

The man was unarmed but reached for the agent’s gun during a scuffle, said Sgt. Roy Frank of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, which conducted a preliminary investigation.

Neither the man who was killed nor the agent who shot him has been identified.

The shooting came during a surveillance operation by an elite, anti-smuggling Border Patrol unit that followed a van suspected of carrying illegal immigrants for 40 miles, from the U.S.-Mexico border to a park-and-ride lot off Interstate 15.

Smugglers often use parking lots off San Diego-area freeways to switch immigrants from one vehicle to another as they make their way north.

At the lot, the agents arrested the driver of the van and 11 suspected illegal immigrants they found in the vehicle. One agent stayed behind to wait for a truck to tow the van, Frank said.

At that point, a man in a 1992 Mitsubishi Expo drove into the lot. The agent, after questioning the man, determined that he was an illegal immigrant and tried to arrest him. The man then bolted across the freeway. When the agent caught up, the man resisted arrest, Frank said.

“There was a struggle for the gun,” Frank said. “The agent was knocked down to the ground during the struggle.

“He was able to retrieve his gun, and at that point he shot the suspect.”

It was unclear what, if any, connection the man had with the smuggling activity, Frank said. The investigation continues.

The agent is a member of the Smuggling Interdiction Group, an undercover unit that targets human smuggling networks.

The incident Thursday was the fourth fatal shooting in the last two years by federal agents working in San Diego and the Imperial Valley.

In December 2005, an agent killed a suspected smuggler after he allegedly threw a rock at him.

In May 2006, federal agents shot a suspected smuggler who was attempting to drive a car filled with illegal immigrants across the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

In March, a Border Patrol agent near Calexico shot a man who had thrown rocks at him. That incident, which was videotaped, was ruled a justifiable shooting by the Imperial County district attorney’s office.

richard.marosi@latimes.com