Author Description

On the night of October 2, 2012, a Border Patrol agent by the name of Nick Ivie was shot and killed in the line of duty in the cactus- and mesquite-covered limestone mountains about halfway between Douglas, Arizona and the small border town of Naco. Nick Ivie was a member of the Naco Border Patrol station's horse patrol unit and, by all accounts, was one of the most respected and well-liked agents at that station or anywhere else in the Department of Homeland Security's Tucson Sector. The crime scene was located about three miles north of the Mexican border on a well-known trail that was used on a regular basis by Mexican narco combatants who were soldiers in the multi-billion dollar business of trafficking narcotics into the United States.The news of Nick Ivie's death spread like wildfire throughout the borderlands, and everyone surviving in this war zone, which Border Patrol Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar had described as a third country, was aware of and instantly upset over the news of another American citizen's senseless murder. Nick Ivie was not the first good man who had been caught in the cross hairs and lost his life. Within eighteen hours of Nick's passing, people were being told that narco "mules" had shot Nick. They also heard of a Homeland Security helicopter that had flown south over the international boundary and captured several armed narcos. The news of another agent, David Johnson, being wounded was published in newspapers along with federal agents' statements saying every effort would be made to capture and prosecute the outlaws who had committed these atrocities. The news stories were not limited to local newspapers and television but, in fact, were posted in media outlets worldwide. And then at the end of four days, spokesmen from the federal agencies involved announced that Nick Ivie had mistaken several other agents that he was working with as Mexican narcos and had opened up and fired upon them. They also said that in the melee that follow