TUCSON - Nine days after the shooting death of Border Patrol agent Nicholas Ivie the FBI is declining to elaborate on the investigation.

Ivie was killed in the line of duty the morning of October 2nd while he and two other agents were responding to an activated ground sensor northeast of Naco. On Friday the FBI released a statement saying there were strong preliminary indications that Agent Ivie's death may have been the result of friendly fire.

Authorities won't release specifics of the incident but Rod Rothrock, the Chief Deputy executing the office of Sheriff in Cochise County said the three agents were 20 yards apart during the incident.

The spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council said the US had permission to fly into Mexico in the immediate aftermath of the shooting however no agency will confirm if an incursion took place.

Art Del Cueto, the local Border Patrol union spokesman said the friendly fire death was a first for the agency, "It's the job, it's the job that we go to do and we go into these spots knowing that we're by ourselves in remote areas and we're possibly going to have to arrest 60 people single handedly, added to the fact that sometimes our radio communications aren't the best in these areas."

It was harvest moon the morning of the shooting which means the area was relatively well lit but Del Cueto said it does not change the dangers of the desert, "the brush is very high so sometimes regardless of the moon you don't have good visibility because of the brush and the vegetation out there."

As of late Wednesday evening authorities on neither side of the border would release information on the status of the two suspects held last week in Mexico. The two other agents involved in the shooting have not been identified and their attorneys are declining comment.