Things turned deadly when a federal immigration agent shot and seriously wounded a fellow co-worker during a Thursday evening confrontation.
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The gunman was shot dead after another agent pulled his weapon and shot him to death inside a Southern California federal building, the FBI said.
According to the Associated Press, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were shot on the seventh floor of the Glenn M. Anderson Federal Building in Long Beach, about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.
FBI agent Steven Martinez said it was a case of “workplace violence involving two federal agents in their office space.”
But the Los Angeles Times, citing multiple law enforcement sources, reported Friday that the initial shots were fired by an agent at his supervisor during an unspecified dispute.
“Another agent, working nearby, intervened and fired his weapon to prevent additional rounds being fired at the victim,” said Martinez, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.
The gunman died at the scene and the wounded agent was hospitalized at St. Mary Medical Center. ICE Special Agent in Charge Claude Arnold would only say he was stable.
The names of the dead gunman, the victim and the agent who fired the final rounds were not released.
There were conflicting early reports about the number of people shot, with local authorities saying two were dead and one wounded, while ICE said one was dead and one wounded.
The Long Beach federal building houses ICE, the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Probation and Parole Office.
