Nobody is hurt in the incidents south of Sierra Vista, and 325 pounds of pot are seized from abandoned trucks.

IRENE HSIAO

A U.S. Border Patrol agent was shot at 11 times on State Route 83 south of Sierra Vista during a string of smuggling-related incidents involving five pickup trucks, officials said.
The incidents began at 6:50 a.m. Wednesday with an agent following a northbound 2004 Ford pickup, a Border Patrol news release said.

According to the Border Patrol:

The pickup had a felony alert on it from Bisbee police, who wanted to question the driver.

Before the agent could turn on emergency lights, the truck made a U-turn and headed toward Mexico.

Other agents who were trying to assist encountered two more northbound pickups, which also turned around and headed toward Mexico.

The first agent, following the pickup with the felony alert on it, encountered a fourth pickup parked just north of the border. As the agent approached this truck, occupants fired 11 shots with an assault rifle and a handgun.

As the agent tried to head for safety, a fifth pickup deliberately slammed his marked patrol car, then fled into Mexico.

Three pickups made it to Mexico. One was intercepted by a Border Patrol helicopter about a quarter-mile north of the border. Its occupants abandoned it and fled to Mexico.

The pickup from which the shots were fired, which was reported stolen in Scottsdale, blew a tire about a mile north of the border and was abandoned. The occupants fled.

Agents seized 325 pounds of marijuana from the abandoned trucks.

No one was arrested or injured.