Amtrak train shooting occurred after marijuana was found on board

(Trends Wide) — The deadly shooting on an Amtrak train in Arizona on Monday erupted after agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recovered large amounts of marijuana on board, according to documents. judicial presented this Tuesday.
The supervisor of the DEA special agents group, Michael G. Garbo, was killed in the shooting, while another special agent was in critical condition, and a Tucson police officer working on the DEA special group was in stable condition, Tucson Police Chief Chris Magnus said Monday.

Devonte Okeith Mathis was charged with possessing with intent to distribute less than 50 kilograms of a mixture or substance containing marijuana, according to the court filing. A search of bags associated with Mathis discovered 2.39 kilograms of raw marijuana, 50 packages of marijuana edibles and “other marijuana and cannabis products,” according to court documents.

Mathis, along with another alleged associate identified in the document as DT, were on a list that DEA agents received “with the names of various people on an Amtrak train arriving in Tucson” as part of their routine investigative activities. according to the complaint.

The train, which was traveling from Los Angeles to New Orleans, had arrived at the station shortly before 8 a.m. local time on Monday.

DT and Mathis were sitting across from each other in the hallway when one of the officers saw Mathis “pull out a blue backpack, a black drawstring bag and a white plastic bag” and then place the bags a few rows ahead, before returning to his seat, the document says.

Mathis reportedly denied that the bags belonged to him when questioned by a DEA agent. The agent removed the bags from the train to search them and found “what he believed were two packages of marijuana in bulk,” according to the document filed Tuesday in the Arizona District Court.

Other DEA agents spoke with DT and “carried out a voluntary K-9 sniffing of several bags on the platform at the Amtrak station” before DT got back on the train, the document says.

When the officer who found marijuana in the bags associated with Mathis informed the other officers, they tried to talk to DT again, the documents say, and that’s when the shooting occurred.

Mathis was later detained, and DT was fatally shot after shooting other officers, the court filing says.

There were 137 passengers and 11 crew members aboard the train, Amtrak said. All were evacuated.

– Trends Wide’s Kaylene Chassie contributed to this report.