The agents were serving a search warrant as part of a violent crimes against children case, authorities say
The shooting occurred at about 6 a.m. as a team of law enforcement officers executed a federal court-ordered search warrant as part of a violent crimes against children case, according to a statement from FBI Miami Special Agent Michael D. Leverock and spokesman Jim Marshall.
Two of the injured FBI agents were taken to the hospital and are in stable condition, and the third injured agent’s status was not clear. The subject of the warrant is dead, the statement said.
The FBI said its Inspection Division is investigating the shooting.
“The review process is thorough and objective and is conducted as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances,” the FBI statement said.
Video from CNN affiliate WSVN shows an ambulance driving from the scene to the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office at about 10:30 a.m., escorted by a group of law enforcement officers on motorcycles. Once there, a body on a gurney draped in an American flag was wheeled into the building as a line of officers saluted.
A body draped in an American flag is transported from an ambulance following the fatal shooting of two FBI agents in Sunrise, Florida, on Tuesday.
The shooting took place at the Water Terrace apartment complex in Sunrise at 6:04 a.m., according to Sunrise Police spokeswoman Otishia Browning-Smith. The person who officers were looking for had barricaded himself, she said.
Police said there was a heavy police presence in the area of 4200 Nob Hill Rd. and that the street was closed in both directions. The scene was safe as of 9:04 a.m., according to police, who still asked people to remain in their homes due to the ongoing investigation.
The apartment complex where the shooting took place is an upscale gated community with a fitness center, pool and spa and tennis courts, its website says. Sunrise, a city of about 84,000 people as of the 2010 Census, is located about 10 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale in South Florida.
With five agents shot, Tuesday’s mass shooting is similar to a deadly firefight 35 years ago outside Miami that was a turning point in the FBI’s history. On April 11, 1986, two violent bank robbers being pursued by FBI agents opened fire with high-powered firearms, killing two agents and wounding five others before the suspects were killed.
In the aftermath of the shootout, the FBI issued special agents with semi-automatic handguns rather than revolvers, changed its firearms training, and studied the psychological impacts of being shot at, former FBI deputy director John S. Pistole said in 2006.
In 2015, a new federal building in Miramar, Florida, housing the FBI Miami Field Office was dedicated the “Benjamin P. Grogan and Jerry L. Dove Federal Building,” named for the two agents who died that day.
CNN’s Evan Perez and Whitney Wild contributed to this report.
