At least one immigration agent has been killed and another injured in a shooting in a federal building in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, officials and media reports say.
The exact circumstances of the shooting on Thursday were not immediately clear, with some media reports saying that two agents had died.
'At approximately 5.30 this afternoon (1230 AEDT Friday), two agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) were shot inside the agency's offices,' said an ICE statement. The offices are in the Glenn M. Anderson Federal Building in downtown Long Beach.
'One of the agents died at the scene,' while the second was listed in stable condition in hospital, it added, saying ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility, local police and the FBI were investigating.
The local Press Telegram and the LA Times newspapers both reported that two agents had died, and that a third was seriously injured.
A Long Beach police official told The Associated Press the shooter killed one person, wounded another with a shot to the stomach, and then was killed.
It was not immediately clear if the shooter died from a self-inflicted wound.
The shooting is believed to have started when one agent opened fire on his supervisor over an unspecified dispute, the Times said. As the supervisor lay wounded, another agent tried to subdue the gunman and more gunfire erupted.
Neither ICE nor FBI spokesmen immediately responded to requests for confirmation of the death toll and further details of the incident.
