Sandy MaloneTucson, AZ – One Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent was killed, a second DEA agent is in critical condition, and a Tucson police officer was wounded in a gunfight on an Amtrak train on Monday morning and parts of the incident were captured on video (video below).
DEA Special Agent in Charge Cheri Oz announced the tragic news at a press conference on Monday afternoon, and then turned the podium over to the Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus.
The incident began at about 7:40 a.m. on Oct. 4 when an Amtrak train traveling from Los Angeles to New Orleans pulled into the downtown Tucson station near 400 North Toole Avenue, CNN reported.
Chief Magnus said that all of the law enforcement officers who were shot were members of the regional Counter Narcotics Alliance (CAN) Task Force.
The police chief said the task force was at the train station and boarded the train to do a routine interdiction check for illegal guns, drugs, money.
He said officers “ultimately made contact with two individuals” who were on the upper level of one of the train cars.
Chief Magnus told reporters one of the suspects was a Hispanic male in his 20s to 30s who pulled out “a handgun and opened fire on the officers.”
The police chief said that a Tucson Police Department (TPD) K9 handler and his dog were on the station platform when the gunfire erupted inside the train.
He heralded the bravery of the officer on the platform who “ran directly into the dangerous situation in order to be whatever possible help he could.”
Chief Magnus told reporters that as the TPD officer “entered into the train, he was also shot.”
The police chief said the suspect exchanged rounds with the officers and then barricaded himself in the bathroom on the lower level of one of the train cars.
Officers eventually found the suspect deceased in the train bathroom.
A second suspect was taken into custody, according to the police chief.
Chief Magnus said that TPD officers transported the critically-wounded DEA agent to the hospital in the back of a patrol vehicle and the other wounded heroes were transported by ambulance.
He lauded all of the law enforcement officers’ “heroic actions during an active shooting situation” and said it was their bravery that ensured none of the approximately one dozen passengers in the train car where it gun battle happened were injured.
“I just think it’s kind of incredible here that there weren’t other people who were hurt even though we’re so saddened by the loss of the officer,” Chief Magnus told reporters.
He said the wounded TPD officer was in stable condition at the hospital but did not release any information about his identify or specifics about his medical condition.
The names of the DEA agents who were shot also have not been released.
A firefighter told KOLD that three people had been injured in the shooting.
On scene where three law enforcement officers were injured in an incident downtown. One officer has died. @KVOA pic.twitter.com/Zd7kJJGrzt
— Nicole Costantino (@NicCostantino) October 4, 2021
An eyewitness told the station they saw two men approach a third man on the train and tell him that they wanted to talk to him, KOLD reported.
The witness said all three went to leave the train and that was when gunfire erupted.
I caught this heart breaking moment of two officers at the scene of the fatal shooting at Tucson Amtrak Station. The @Tucson_Police @FBI have been superb. I’m safe due to their fast action. @TucsonStar @whatsuptucson @KVOA pic.twitter.com/WPB8BmRzyd
— Evan Courtney (@EvanCourtney) October 4, 2021
The incident was captured on Virtual Railfan livestreaming cameras.
Gunshots can be heard in the video and then the K9 officer with his weapon drawn and his dog on a leash approached the door of the train.
The video showed the officer jumped onto the train and faced up the aisle of the car to his left.
A second later “get out of here, get out of here!” can be heard and then there was one shot before the officer and his dog backed off the train car and onto the platform.
At first, the officer backed away from the train with his weapon drawn and appeared to be limping.
But then he suddenly turned and took off at a run, pulling his K9 behind him, as the video showed the suspect stepped into the threshold of the train car and opened fire on the K9 unit as it fled.
Then the video showed the gunman went back inside the train and gunfire erupted once again.
Amtrak said there were 137 passengers and 11 crew members on the train when the shooting started, CNN reported.
“There are no reported injuries to the crew or passengers,” Amtrak said in a statement.
Evan Courtney told CNN he was sitting in a lounge car when “people came running through yelling, ‘Shots fired!'”
Courtney said grabbed his backpack and then huddled with strangers in a hallway.
“I looked out of the window and saw SWAT with assault rifles huddled behind barricades,” Courtney told CNN. “After about 15 minutes, police ran to us and told us to get out of the car and run in the opposite direction, out of harm’s way.”
Watch the incident unfold in the video below. WARNING – Graphic Content:
Breaking: At least 1 dead, 2 injured, following a shooting onboard an Amtrak train stopped at the Tucson station in Tucson, Arizona. One person is in custody. (Via News 4 Tucson) pic.twitter.com/nInfHpWL1R
— PM Breaking News (@PMBreakingNews) October 4, 2021
Holly Matkin
