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CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / SAN DIEGO

By Richard Marosi
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Federal authorities investigating the fatal shooting of a U.S Border Patrol agent were following up on numerous leads in the U.S. and Mexico, the FBI said

Friday afternoon, Homeland Security officials detained a man in San Jose who may have connections with one or more of the assailants, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.

Police in Tecate, Mexico, announced late Friday that they had made an arrest in the case. The suspect, Ernesto Parra Valenzuela, 36, was walking near the crime scene shortly after the shooting, carrying a weapon, Tecate police said. U.S. authorities have yet to connect him with the case, however.

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The slain agent, Robert Rosas, a three-year veteran, was shot multiple times after responding to an incursion Thursday night by a group of suspected smugglers just inside the border fence near the town of Campo, 60 miles east of San Diego.

-- Richard Marosi

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Richard Marosi

Richard Marosi is a former Metro editor for the Los Angeles Times. He previously reported from the U.S.-Mexico border. Marosi was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2015 for his series on Mexican laborers and in 2013 for his stories on the fate of thousands of immigrants who were deported from the U.S. to Mexico in recent years. He has delved deeply into Mexico’s drug wars, producing a groundbreaking series on the Sinaloa cartel and sharing an Overseas Press Club Award in 2009. In the early 2000s, his corruption investigations in Southeast Los Angeles County contributed to the indictment or ouster of a dozen politicians and city officials. Marosi is a Southern California resident but remains loyal to the Giants, 49ers and Warriors of his native San Francisco Bay Area.

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