Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III paid their respects Thursday to an FBI agent who was shot to death, possibly by his own colleague, as he chased a group of bank robbery suspects.
The nation’s top law enforcement officials were escorted inside an arts center as hundreds of mourners waited in a line stretching down the drive.
Inside, at least a thousand mourners filed past the closed, flag-draped casket containing the body of Special Agent Barry Lee Bush. Next to the casket, surrounded by flowers, was a table with nearly a dozen framed pictures of Bush and his family.
“We would like to thank all of our neighbors, friends and the entire law enforcement community for their unbelievable support and continued expressions of sympathy,” Bush’s family said in a statement.
Bush, 52, was fatally shot April 5 while he and other agents tried to capture a group of suspected bank robbers in Readington Township, N.J. The FBI said Bush may have been accidentally shot by another agent during the confrontation outside a PNC bank.
Mueller was scheduled to deliver the eulogy for Bush, who played a key role in several high-profile cases during his 19-year FBI career. He was the 51st FBI agent killed in the line of duty.
“He had the demeanor of the type of guy that would be an FBI agent,” said retired Pottstown Sgt. Paul H. Campbell, who was Bush’s supervisor for a year when Bush was a patrolman in the 1980s.
An internal investigation into the shooting is under way. The FBI said Bush may have been struck when a fellow agent’s weapon discharged accidentally. The FBI has declined to provide specific details.
However, two law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press that the shooter may have mistaken Bush for a suspect. The officials spoke on the condition that they remain anonymous because they were not authorized to talk about the investigation.
Bush, who lived near Easton, Pa., was born in Pottstown and was a 1972 graduate of Pottstown High School. He is survived by a wife and two children.