1 person injured in U.S. Border Patrol shooting near Canadian border

A U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and injured a person in Blaine, near the Canadian border, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott said Tuesday morning.

The person was taken to the hospital and no Border Patrol agents were injured, FBI officials said. A firearm was found at the scene.

The shooting took place in the corner of a residential area in the small border town north of Bellingham, on Fourth and A streets, Blaine police said. It's a wooded area between the two ports of entry in Blaine: the Peace Arch border crossing on Interstate 5 and the Pacific Highway border crossing about a mile east on Highway 543, said Brittny Valdez, chief of staff for the Port of Blaine.

Officials from the FBI, Whatcom County sheriff's office, Blaine police and CBP swarmed the area for hours, but gave neighborhood residents almost no information about what happened.

The circumstances of the shooting are not known, but the FBI said there is no threat to the public.

The FBI is leading the criminal investigation, with CBP's Office of Professional Responsibility reviewing the use of force in the incident.

Residents who live near A and Fourth streets said they were rattled by the early-morning shooting, the first any could remember happening since they moved into the neighborhood.

According to neighbors, Blaine is known as a sleepy small town, where everyone knows everyone. For those living nearest Tuesday's shooting, their neighborhood is also defined by the omnipresence of CBP officers, who constantly surveil the roughly 100 feet separating Blaine from the Canadian border.

The stretch of land just east of Peace Arch Historical State Park includes a dirt path running through a clearing in the trees lining the border. CBP officers are almost always there monitoring the area from their vehicles, said Tracey Justason, 63.

Since moving into her home just east of A and Fourth streets about two years ago, Justason said she has occasionally heard of people entering the U.S. by running through the clearing just north of her house.

Tuesday marked the first time she had ever heard of a shooting in her neighborhood.

Justason said her husband woke up at about 5:30 a.m. to the sound of gunshots, then sirens. About 30 minutes later, she went to let her dogs out of the house and saw what appeared to be two CBP officers standing near her front door.

"I went, "Oh, we got a border runner,' and they said, ‘No, there was a shooting,'" she said. The officers told her they couldn't say any more, she said.

Just south of Justason, Chris Beckett said his wife heard some "pop pop pops" early this morning and thought it was gunshots. Beckett, 56, checked his neighborhood's Facebook group and saw a post shared by someone living on the corner of Fourth and A street, which said their outdoor security camera had captured footage of a man emerging from the nearby wooded area and "acting nervous" at the sight of two CBP agents.

Beckett opened his iPad to show his neighbor's post, which said their footage showed the man start running, shots being fired, and the man dropping to the ground on their driveway.

The neighbor also shared a photo taken from an upper floor of their home, which showed a North Whatcom County Fire & Rescue ambulance parked on Fourth Street, surrounded by law enforcement officials and vehicles.

In his eight years of living in the neighborhood, Tuesday's shooting was the first time Beckett had ever heard of CBP officers doing anything besides surveilling the area.

"They sit there all the time, but I've never seen anything like this," he said.

Blaine is mostly known for its mailboxes, which people in Canada rent so they can get packages delivered there that can't be shipped internationally, Beckett said.

Shortly after he and his wife moved to Blaine, Beckett said, a CBP officer drove up next to him and asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood and if he lived nearby. They've left him alone since then, he said.

David Wilson-Bowman, 13, watched the police activity unfolding from the corner of B and Fourth streets, about seven blocks north of his family's house. He held his 8-year-old Chihuahua, Luna, in one hand and an energy drink and his cellphone in the other as he FaceTimed his mother.

After his family moved back to Blaine last year, Wilson-Bowman said the shooting left him feeling surprised and "a little weird."

"It's usually calm, for the most part."

His mother, Clarrissa Wilson, 41, was anxious.

Wilson grew up in East Vancouver B.C., and it took her some time to get used to living in a town as small and quiet as Blaine. She now finds comfort in living somewhere so peaceful.

Tuesday's shooting left her worried that violence typically seen in big cities was coming to her neighborhood. She's nervous about her five children leaving the home without their cellphones' location trackers turned on, and that CBP may have fired at someone who simply "got spooked" at the sight of them, she said.

"Why shoot?" she said. "Why is that the first response to everything?"

Reporters Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks and Anumita Kaur contributed to this story.

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This story was originally published June 16, 2026 at 9:41 AM.