A man was wounded Tuesday after authorities said he exchanged gunfire with U.S. Border Patrol agents near the U.S.-Mexico border, including firing at a Border Patrol helicopter, according to the FBI and local officials.
Federal agents were attempting to apprehend the 34-year-old Arizona man during a traffic stop attempt near Arivaca, Arizona. Authorities said the suspect, Patrick Gary Schlegel, fled and shot at agents and at a Border Patrol helicopter, and that agents returned fire and struck him.
Heith Janke, special agent in charge of the FBI in Phoenix, said Schlegel was transported to a hospital and was recovering from surgery Tuesday evening. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said during a news conference that he believes the Border Patrol agent involved in the shooting acted lawfully based on what is known so far. Nanos said, “The investigation is still ongoing. There may be other things that show up.”
The FBI and sheriff’s department also described a sequence that began before the shooting. Nanos said agents had attempted to stop the same vehicle earlier, but the occupants drove away. Later in the morning, he said a Border Patrol agent saw the vehicle again and attempted to stop it, but the driver fled on foot.
Janke said Schlegel was in federal custody and expected to be charged with assault on a federal officer, human smuggling and being a felon in possession of a firearm. “Let me be clear, any assault on law enforcement officers will not be tolerated,” Janke said.
A statement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security late Tuesday said it would provide more information when available. The FBI did not provide additional details in the initial report, as the investigation remained ongoing, Nanos said.
The sheriff’s department said its involvement in the investigation was based on what it described as “long standing relationships” built over time in the border area to promote transparency. The department said the FBI asked it to lead a use-of-force investigation of the Border Patrol, a process the department described as standard when a federal agency is involved in a shooting in the county.
Court records cited in the report indicated Schlegel had a criminal history that included a December warrant for escape stemming from a human smuggling and firearms conviction. The report said that on Dec. 15, Schlegel signed out of an institution in Tucson to go to a counseling session but did not return.
The report said Schlegel was previously charged in 2023 with transporting people in the U.S. illegally for financial gain in Arizona, after authorities said he loaded more than a dozen people near the border into a truck, hid them under a tarp and drove away. The court records described agents following the truck before Schlegel crashed and fled on foot, and said he allegedly threw rocks at a government helicopter before he was apprehended; the report said two pistols were found in the truck.
Nanos said Tuesday there was video from the shooting, but he was not sure whether it was police body camera footage or where it originated. Arivaca is about 10 miles from the border, and authorities said agents regularly patrol the area because it is a common path for drug smugglers and migrants who illegally cross the border.
The report also placed the shooting in a broader context of recent violence involving immigration enforcement operations. It said Border Patrol agents fired weapons in eight incidents during the 12-month period through September 2025, compared with 14 times during the year before that and 13 times the year before that. It said the Arizona incident came during a month that had seen three shootings, two fatal, by immigration officers involved in Homeland Security enforcement in Minnesota.