DEA Agent Killed in Amtrak Shootout Remembered for Leadership

A DEA agent who was shot and killed by an Amtrak train passenger concealing large amounts of marijuana in Arizona was a revered leader whose career spanned almost two decades, the agency said Tuesday.

Michael Garbo, who also went by Mike, was a group supervisor. He possessed expertise and a manner that “were legendary,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in a statement.

Garbo was loved and respected throughout the agency “for his leadership and for his unrelenting passion to protect the safety of the American people,” she said. “Above all else, he was a devoted and loving father and husband.”

Garbo joined the DEA in 2005. As a special agent and supervisor, he pursued criminal drug traffickers at the U.S.-Mexico border and in Afghanistan, the Associated Press reports.