Thursday, November 20, 2008
GLENSHAW, Pa. (AP) — A former police officer who had been an FBI agent for less than two years was fatally shot Wednesday as he served a warrant at the home of a man suspected of being a cocaine dealer.
Agent Samuel Hicks was shot about 6 a.m. in Indiana Township, a middle-class community about 10 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. He was taking part in a drug-ring roundup at the home of Robert Korbe, who was in custody on the drug charges.
Hicks, 33, had been with the FBI since March 2007. He was a former Baltimore police officer and schoolteacher with a wife and 3-year-old son.
“Special Agent Hicks made the ultimate sacrifice that any law enforcement officer makes for his country,” Michael Rodriguez, special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh FBI office, said in a statement read to reporters.
“He served with honor and bravery and will be greatly missed by his colleagues here in Pittsburgh and throughout the FBI,” he said.
Korbe was expected to appear in federal court later Wednesday. He was one of 35 people charged in a 27-count drug-trafficking indictment unsealed Wednesday. It accuses the defendants of conspiring to traffic cocaine and crack from October 2007 through September.
At the federal courthouse in Pittsburgh, public defenders were in a courtroom Wednesday morning awaiting the arrival of those rounded up in the drug sweep.
A woman who answered the phone at Hicks’ home said his wife, Brooke Hicks, was not taking calls.
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said: “The loss of Sam Hicks is a tragedy. Our hearts and prayers go out to Sam’s family and the members of the Pittsburgh field office.”
The last FBI special agent killed in the line of duty was Barry Lee Bush, who was accidentally shot and killed by a fellow agent outside a bank on April 5, 2007, in Readington, N.J., according to the FBI.