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SANTA CRUZ COUNTY - There is an ongoing investigation into a shooting involving a border patrol agent that happened Tuesday morning.

The shooting took place in Santa Cruz County in a remote area northwest of Pena Blanca Lake.

The Santa Cruz Sheriff's Department said two agents on horse patrol saw a group of about a dozen suspected illegal immigrants.

Deputies tell News 4 a witness claims one of the alleged illegal immigrants fell or was bumped by a horse and that's when the agent shot the man in the stomach. That man is in stable condition.

The attorney for the Border Patrol agent tells a much different story. Attorney Jim Calle calls this shooting very unusual. He says his client only opened fired when one of the suspected illegals threw rocks at him.

Calle says the 30 year-old man didn't listen to the Border Patrol agent's orders and took off running. He says the agent told the man to stop running and eventually caught up with him.

Calle says, "The alien went down and picked up a rock...and when your five feet away from somebody who's on horse back, if you pick up a rock of this size (Calle gestured to a rock about the size of a melon) you have one intent which is to do serious bodily harm or to kill this agent."

The attorney says the agent was able to get the man to put the rock down but says the situation quickly took a turn for the worse.

"All that alien did at that point was side step about five feet or four feet to the agents right and start to pick up yet another rock at this point he's just about four feet away so he had no opportunity to do anything but fire his weapon which is what he did," Calle told News 4.

According to Calle, no other law enforcement witnessed the shooting but one woman who was part of the group of suspected illegals claims she was able to see the shooting happen from up to 150 yards away.

He says, "She may have seen some things that which in fact are consistent with the actual events but she was so far away she would not have seen the alien picking up the rocks."

The agent is on administrative leave for 72 hours. News 4 spoke with Border Patrol, the FBI, who is the lead investigating agency, and the U.S. Attorney's Office. All told us they could not comment on an ongoing investigation.

The FBI spokesman says once their investigation is complete they will turn their findings over to the US Attorneys Office.