Manner of FBI agent's death may be rare

If an FBI agent fatally shot while investigating a string of bank robberies died by another agent's bullet, it would mark just the second time in the agency's nearly centurylong history that one agent killed another, the FBI said.

Agent Barry Lee Bush's death serves as a grim illustration of the sometimes-chaotic situations in which the agents work, experts said Friday.

Bush, who was part of an FBI task force investigating a string of bank robberies in central New Jersey, was killed Thursday outside a bank in Readington, possibly by one of his own colleagues, as the team was attempting to arrest three men suspects.

"Preliminarily, information suggests the agent may have been fatally wounded as a result of the accidental discharge of another agent's weapon during a dynamic arrest situation," the FBI said in a statement released Thursday.

Two of the suspects were apprehended at the scene in front of a PNC Bank on Route 22, while a third was captured Friday morning in nearby woods. The suspects had two assault rifles and a handgun but didn't fire any shots, the agency said.

The agency has released few details about Bush's death, including how many times he was shot, whether he was wearing body armor, where on the body he was hit, who fired the shot that killed him and _ most importantly _ why the other agent's weapon went off.

Since the FBI was created in 1908, the only agent to be killed by another agent was Robin L. Ahrens who died Oct. 5, 1985, said Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman. Ahrens, who was also the first female agent to be killed in the line of duty, was helping apprehend a fugitive in Phoenix when she was shot.

According to news reports at the time, Ahrens was coming through a dimly lit passageway between two buildings when two agents opened fire, mistakenly thinking she was the suspect's girlfriend.

Experts said it was unclear from the FBI's statements whether the gun that killed Bush went off accidentally or whether the agent who discharged the round thought he or she was firing at a suspect _ a circumstance referred to by the military as "friendly fire" situation.

Geoffrey Doyle, a retired FBI agent who spent 15 years on various agency SWAT teams, said accidental discharges are rare considering how often agents use loaded weapons.

They tend to occur when people are moving or climbing over things, often in pursuit of suspects when the gun's safety has been taken off, Doyle said _ all circumstances that could have occurred Thursday.

"The most dangerous time for something like that to happen is right at the confluence of the action ... when the action is going down," Doyle said.

Doyle said during his career he had been involved in one accidental discharge situation during which another law enforcement official was climbing over a fence in the Bronx during an arrest, and when the gun, strapped around his back, hit the fence, the safety clicked off and one round went off; no one was injured in that incident.

Experts also pointed out that law enforcement officials were going into a tense situation in which they knew they faced suspects believed to have carried out bank heists in which they fired warning shots in the air.

"These things are always very difficult. Even in the best-managed situations mistakes can occur," said William Rehder, a Los Angeles security consultant who spent 31 of his 33 years in the FBI investigating bank robberies. "You can't totally cut emotion out of this. Anything can happen."

All new FBI agents receive extensive firearms instruction during their 21-week training at the agency's facility in Quantico, Va., said Tim Burke, who helps train new agents. Agents in the field are also required to constantly review their firearms training, Burke said.

Bush, who joined the FBI in August of 1987 and worked out of the Newark office, was the 50th FBI agent to die in the agency's history _ a loss that both current and former agents have been feeling.

"It broke my heart and when I heard it was possibly friendly fire it broke it twice," Doyle said.

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Associated Press writer Matthew Verrinder in Trenton contributed to this report.