SUNRISE, Florida (AP) – Two FBI agents were shot dead and three injured while trying to carry out a search warrant in Florida on Tuesday, prompting a SWAT team to storm an apartment building where the suspect was buried while the neighbors gathered in their houses. The suspect also died.
The confrontation in the suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Sunrise, marked one of the bloodiest days in FBI history in South Florida and one of the deadliest nationwide, according to the FBI website.
FBI agents have come to the apartment complex to serve a federal search warrant in connection with a case involving child pornography and child crime, according to FBI Miami Special Agent Michael D. Leverock and FBI Association President Brian O’Hare.
Two of the injured officers were taken to hospitals for treatment and were in stable condition, Leverock said. The third did not require hospitalization, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said in a statement.
The shootings took place around 6 a.m. in a middle-class neighborhood of single-family homes, duplexes and apartment buildings west of Fort Lauderdale, near the Everglades.
The shootings erupted with about four shots – “Boom, boom, boom, boom!” said Julius McLymont, whose house adjoins the Water Terrace apartment complex, where the suspect was barricaded.
At first, McLymont thought the gunshot was a machine that fired back, then two minutes later he heard about five more gunshots. He went outside and looked over the fence as police cars and ambulances rushed. Then he saw officers working on someone lying on the ground before loading the person into an ambulance.
Then a SWAT team appeared, with officers wearing riot gear. Then they walked around the building, shouting, “Go, go, go!” McLymont said. He said he could not see the apartment where the shooting happened at his location.
A few hours later, Sunrise Police asked Water Terrace residents to stay in their homes, while law enforcement blocked the entrances to their community.
Wray identified the two agents killed as Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger, both of whom specialize in investigating crimes against children.
“Special Agent Alfin and Special Agent Schwartzenberger today exemplified heroism in defending their country,” he said. “The FBI will always honor their supreme sacrifice and will be forever grateful for their bravery.”
Schwartzenberger, 43, has been an agent with the FBI since December 2005 and worked in the Miami office of a team of agents dealing with violent crimes against children, according to court records. His work focused mainly on prosecuting offenders who sexually exploit children online and investigating other crimes against children.
Alfin, 36, who also investigated child exploitation cases, previously worked at the FBI headquarters, dealing with major cases involving violent crimes against children, according to court data. He holds a bachelor’s degree in information technology and has attended the FBI’s specialized cyber crime training programs. He was involved in a major investigation into the exploitation of children, called Playpen, which led to worldwide arrests.
After Tuesday’s shootings, police motorcycles, with flashing lights, escorted a fire truck, which brought the body of one of the officers to the doctor’s office on the nearby Dania beach. Law enforcement officers from many agencies lined up to pay their respects as a body covered with a flag was taken out of the vehicle and taken inside.
Alex Piquero, a sociology professor at the University of Miami who specializes in criminology, said serving a search warrant at a person’s home is incredibly dangerous to law enforcement.
“Serving warrants, along with internal disputes and high-speed pursuits, are among the most dangerous for law enforcement – I don’t know what awaits them inside,” Piquero said.
There have been several other shootings throughout FBI history in which two officers died, according to the office’s Wall of Honor.
In South Florida, the infamous “Miami Shootout” in 1986, he took the lives of agents Ben Grogan and Jerry Dove in a fight with two heavily armed robbery suspects, who were also killed. Five other FBI agents were injured in that shooting, prompting the office to update the weapons the agencies were carrying.
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Balm reported from Washington. Associated Press Reporters, Frieda Frisaro, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida; Marta Lavandier in Sunrise; and AP News researcher Rhonda Shafner of New York contributed to this report.