ICE/HSI Agent Killed in Family Violence Incident

The 14-year-old son of an ICE/HSI special agent who was shot to death Wednesday night at his Carson, CA home has been arrested on suspicion of murder, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officials said Thursday

The agent, whose name has not been released, was killed by a single shot fired into his house  shortly after 9 p.m. last night.

Lt. Holly Francisco told the LA Times that the son of the agent, who has not been identified, is alleged to have fired one shot from the backyard with his father’s HSI issued handgun. 

The agent, who is about 40 and had been with ICE for four years, was in a TV room on the ground floor when he was wounded in the head, Francisco said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

A motive for the shooting had not been determined, she said.

“This was a domestic violence incident,” she said.

ICE agents and sheriff’s homicide investigators were at the house this morning. Police tape blocked access to the house, in a residential neighborhood of one- and two-story homes. About two dozen ICE agents gathered for a few minutes and then left, some wiping away tears.

“I am deeply saddened to report that one of our ICE Homeland Security Investigations special agents died tragically at his home in the Los Angeles area overnight,” ICE Director John Morton said in a statement.

“This is a difficult time for the family and loved ones of the agent, and for everyone at ICE,” he said. “Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.”

It was the second fatal shooting of an ICE agent in the Los Angeles area this year.

In February, a confrontation between agents at the Glenn M. Anderson Building in Long Beach erupted in gunfire that left one agent dead and another seriously injured.

Ezequiel Garcia, 45, who supervised a Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force, wounded Deputy Special Agent in Charge Kevin Kozak, 51, in his upper torso, legs and hands before being shot and killed himself by a supervisor.

Update on Friday, May 4, 2012 at 8:37AM by Bonzer Wolf

A REACH helicopter landed on McDowell Boulevard to transport the most severely wounded agent to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. Two ICE agents were transported by ground ambulance, to Memorial and Petaluma Valley Hospital, emergency dispatchers said.

And ICE spokes person told reporters that none of the agents’ injuries was life-threatening.

“I hear they’re OK,” one special agent at the scene told reporters.

South San Francisco Police, said the Petaluma raid stemmed from investigation into the 2010 killings of Gonzalo Avalos, 19, Omar Cortez, 18 and Hector Flores, 20, who were killed while walking down a South San Francisco street.  Authorities have said the slayings were motivated by a gang rivalry, but it soon involved the need to bring in federal agencies as the case expanded.