By Bob Christie, Associated Press Writer

May 1, 2010

PHOENIX – Authorities have captured 17 suspected illegal immigrants in southern Arizona as they continued their manhunt Saturday for smugglers who they say shot and wounded a sheriff’s deputy in a remote desert area 50 miles south of Phoenix.

Three of those captured overnight Friday matched descriptions from the wounded Pinal County deputy and were being questioned Saturday, sheriff’s Lt. Tamatha Villar said. The deputy was released from the hospital, and was recovering at home…

Arizona politicians called Friday’s shooting an outrage and urged the federal government to do more to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.

The violence “should show the rest of the country what we Arizonans have known for too long — the unsecured border poses a very real and very immediate danger,” said U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, a Democrat whose district includes part of Pinal County.

On Friday afternoon, Deputy Louie Puroll, 53, was patrolling near Interstate 8 when he came upon a stash of marijuana bales and five suspected smugglers. At least one of the suspects opened fire on him, tearing a chunk of skin from his back.

Puroll radioed in that he was shot, setting off a frantic hour-long search for the deputy in the remote desert, Villar said.

The area is a well-known smuggling corridor for drugs and illegal immigrants headed from Mexico to Phoenix and the U.S. interior.

State and federal law enforcement agencies deployed helicopters and scores of officers to search a 100-square-mile zone for the suspects. The Arizona Republic reported that officials said more than one of the choppers came under fire during the manhunt on Friday.

Puroll, a 15-year department veteran, had been on the lookout for smugglers when he discovered the suspected smugglers, two armed with rifles, authorities said.