How border agent died grows murkier

President Donald Trump called it proof of the need to build a wall; Sen. Ted Cruz said it was a “stark reminder” of insecurity along the border.

To everyone, it seemed like a horrendous example of the dangers that Border Patrol officers face as they cover vast, remote and unforgiving territories.

But a month after a middle-of-the-night incident in which one Border Patrol agent was killed and another, who is said to have no memory of what happened, was severely injured, no one seems to know how the men came into harm’s way off an interstate in West Texas.

It was initially thought to be an attack, perhaps by migrants or drug smugglers.

But the FBI says it also was possible the men were hurt accidentally.

The Culberson County sheriff, Oscar Carrillo, who is helping with the investigation, seemed to favor that theory when he told The Dallas Morning News that the men could have been hit by a truck driving along the interstate next to where they were found.

“If this was an assault, believe me, as sheriff, I’d be the first one out there emphasizing safety in our community and with our deputies, pairing them up,” he told the newspaper.

“But from what I know and see, that was not the case here.”

That hypothesis has angered the border agents’ union, The National Border Patrol Council, whose leadership fiercely insists that the men were attacked.

Chris Cabrera, a spokesman for the organization, went as far as to call Carrillo a “dingbat” on his weekly podcast.

Another sign of the uncertainty surrounding the case can be found in the descriptions of the rewards offered by the FBI and the state of Texas.

The state is offering $20,000 for information “leading to the “arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent and the serious injury of another.”

The FBI’s $50,000 reward is for “information leading to the resolution of this case.”