By Steve Neavling

On this date in 2007, an FBI agent was fatally shot while trying to arrest three heavily armed bank robbery suspects in central New Jersey. 

Barry Lee Bush, 52, of the FBI’s Newark Field Office, was killed when another agent’s gun accidentally discharged outside a PNC Bank branch in Readington.  

The agent who mistakenly shot Bush was absolved after an investigation by the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility determined the agent was within the bureau’s guidelines for firing his weapon. 

In honor of Bush in April 2008, the bureau’s Newark office was renamed after him.

Bush joined the FBI in 1987 and transferred from the Kansas City Field Office to Newark in 1991. 

At a memorial service on April 12, 2017, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller described Bush as a “dogged investigator” who “loved being part of the action.”

“Barry loved his job,” Mueller said at the time. “But he had two loves in his life. One was the Bureau. The other love—his first love— was his family. He talked about them constantly. They were his pride and joy. No matter how much he loved his work, he loved coming home at the end of the day even more.”

Read Mueller’s full remarks at the memorial service.

By Steve Neavling

A 32-year-old man who shot a member of a U.S. Marshals Service Task Force outside of a hotel in Mississippi has pleaded guilty to four counts of assaulting and resisting officers and one count of discharging a firearm.  

Joseph Dale Sonnier, of Hancock County, entered the plea in federal court Thursday and is set to be sentenced on July 8. He faces up to 20 years of prison on each count. 

Sonnier shot a member of the task force in the neck while executing a search warrant on July 21. The officer survived. 

Sonnier was wanted on two counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated assaulted, armed robbery and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.