2 suspects shot,

third escapes after

assault in Vermont

By WILSON RING

MONTPELIER, Vt. -- A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot at three suspects early Monday after being assaulted on a residential street near the Vermont-Quebec border, the agency said.

An officer on routine patrol spotted the two males and a female walking in the Baxter Street area of Derby Line at about 2:15 a.m., said spokesman Mark Henry.

Henry said the agent spoke with the suspects briefly before they began assaulting him. Henry wouldn't release the name of the agent, who was not seriously hurt.

"They knocked him down, there was a struggle," Henry said. "One subject started punching and hitting him; at that point he became concerned for his life."

The agent fired two shots. A male and female suspect were taken into custody. The second male fled back into Canada.

Neither person in custody was wounded. Agents don't know about the other suspect.

Henry said it would be up to Vermont's U.S. Attorney's office to release the names of those taken into custody on Monday and their nationalities. A call to the U.S. Attorney's office was not immediately returned.

It was the third shooting incident involving Border Patrol agents in the agency's Swanton Sector in the last 11 months. The sector runs 295 miles from Ogdensburg, N.Y., east through Vermont and on to the New Hampshire-Maine border.

In May, a Border Patrol agent in Malone shot and wounded a New York man accused of smuggling marijuana into the United States on an all terrain vehicle. Last August, an agent shot at a vehicle in Alburgh that twice tried to run him over.

Henry said there is more violence on the border, but he thinks it shows the Border Patrol is doing its job.

"I think part of that is as we get more effective, as we get more agents, more equipment, we get closer to our goal of operational control on the border," Henry said.