Texas and Maine shootings preceded Florida death

The Florida Highway Patrol said a pedestrian was struck and killed Tuesday morning after an encounter involving Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents at a gas station along U.S. 1 in St. Augustine. MSI previously reported that the man was among four occupants of a vehicle who fled the scene on foot. One of the men ran across the highway and was hit by a tractor-trailer.

“The pedestrian was struck by the tractor trailer in the right lane and sustained fatal injuries on scene,” Master Sgt Dylan Bryan, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesperson, said in a statement. “The tractor trailer immediately stopped and attempted to render aid to the victim.”

Authorities said HSI agents had an encounter with four men whose vehicle was in the parking lot of a convenience store along the busy road. The statement did not clarify whether the man who died was the subject of an arrest operation. Border Patrol vehicles were present at the scene, according to a homeland security source and an image from the crash site.

The Florida Highway Patrol referred questions to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office and Customs and Border Protection also referred questions to ICE.

The New York Times first reported the death Tuesday afternoon. The man’s identity has not been released, and it is unknown whether the other three men who fled the encounter were taken into custody.

Tuesday morning’s death is the third fatal incident linked to federal immigration enforcement operations in the past week, according to news reports. On Monday, an ICE officer fatally shot Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian immigrant, during an arrest attempt in Biddeford, Maine. Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed by ICE officers in Houston, Texas, while on his way to work.

The successive deaths have intensified public criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign. DHS and ICE have faced mounting questions over the use of lethal force, the absence of body‑camera footage in some instances, and the lack of transparency surrounding field operations.