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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified on Wednesday David Lee Huber as the gunman who shot and killed two agents investigating a child pornography case at a Sunrise, Florida, home on Tuesday.
Investigators said Huber killed special agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger and wounded three other agents as they attempted to issue a search warrant in a child pornography investigation early Tuesday morning, national media reported.
The two FBI agents killed during the operation in Sunrise (southeast Florida) were ambushed by the suspect in their home, who shot them through the door with a rifle and then took his own life, according to reports.
Huber, 55, worked as a systems engineer and had two technology companies, Huber Computer Consulting and Computer Troubleshooters 0512 Inc. to his name, according to business records cited by the Washington Post.
He was issued a pilot certificate in 1994, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. He divorced in 2016 and court records indicate he had at least one child, the newspaper added.
FBI Director Meets with Victims’ Families
FBI Director Christopher Wray met today with family members of the agents and officers who worked in a child pornography investigation group.
Wray also visited the crime scene where Huber opened fire on FBI agents as they approached the front door of his apartment to serve a search warrant for alleged possession of child pornography.
The FBI director also met with U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Ariana Fajardo Orshan and U.S. Attorney Tony Gonzalez at the Miramar, South Florida office.
The shooting
The shootings, which occurred shortly before dawn on Tuesday, took the lives of Special Agents Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, and Daniel Alfin, 36.
The agents were to seize Huber’s computer and other evidence after the FBI’s specialized child pornography squad linked the computer’s Internet protocol address and the suspect’s physical address.
Three other agents were also left wounded, two of whom were transported to a hospital after being shot multiple times but are in stable condition.
The suspect remained in the home located in the Water Terrace apartment complex until he finally took his own life, according to local media.
The FBI confirmed that the alleged attacker also died in the incident, but did not report how.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday mourned the event and sent his condolences to the victims’ families. “My heart aches for the families. They risked their lives and it is an incredible price,” he said from the Oval Office.
The victims were fighting against child exploitation
Schwartzenberger, a Colorado native and mother of two, was an FBI veteran who had been with the agency since 2005. She was part of the violent crimes against children squad in the Miami field office.
Meanwhile, Alfin, a New York father of one, had been an FBI special agent since 2009 and had been assigned to the Miami child exploitation task force.
“Every day, FBI special agents put themselves in harm’s way to keep the American people safe. Special Agent Alfin and Special Agent Schwartzenberger today exemplified heroism in defense of their country,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday.
The FBI director plans to meet Wednesday with the families of the slain agents and to visit the scene of the incident, which is still under investigation by authorities.
The agency is conducting an investigation into the incident and how to provide more security for search warrant executions, the task that led agents to the Sunrise apartment complex.
Neighbors, who had to remain in their homes for hours, spoke to various media outlets to recount what they experienced.
Dawn Garrick, 53, told the New York Times that the apartment complex is a “safe and quiet” place, inhabited mostly by professionals and friendly people.
The events in Sunrise, west of Fort Lauderdale, harkened back to one of the bloodiest incidents in FBI history, which occurred in 1986 in a residential suburb of Miami and claimed the lives of agents Ben Grogan and Jerry Dove.
The last time an FBI agent was killed in the line of duty was in 2008, when Officer Samuel Hicks was shot during a search in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
