A U.S. Border Patrol agent died Sunday after responding to a triggered sensor at a remote part of the Arizona border east of Nogales, the Tucson Sector chief said.
Roy Villareal, the chief patrol agent, told reporters that Agent Robert Hotten, 44, was working with two other border agents on Sunday afternoon, responding to what appeared to be a group of migrants who had activated a ground sensor near Mount Washington, south of Patagonia at the Coronado National Forest.
After several hours of trying to contact him on the radio with no response, the agents began to search for Hotten in that area, finding him unconscious at about 4:15 p.m., Villareal said.
“When Agent Hotten was found unresponsive, it appears that he had fallen and may have hit his head on some rocks, but again at this stage we don’t know that was the cause of death,” he said during a Monday afternoon news conference in Tucson.
