DRUG SUSPECT KILLED IN FIGHT WITH U.S. AGENT, AUTHORITIES SAY

A 31-year-old unarmed suspect in a drug investigation was shot and
killed on a Brooklyn street yesterday after he struggled with a
federal drug agent who had chased him down and tackled him, the
authorities said.

The man, Egbert David Dewgard, was hit once in the right side of his
lower back with a .40-caliber bullet and pronounced dead at Kings
County Hospital Center about 11:30 a.m., said Debera D. Souvenir, a
hospital official.

Mr. Dewgard was shot at 10:59 a.m. as he struggled with the agent,
from the Drug Enforcement Administration, on New York Avenue, between
Foster Avenue and Farragut Road, in the East Flatbush neighborhood,
the authorities said. An autopsy is to be conducted today.

The shooting prompted an angry response from some people in the area.
Dozens, including some of Mr. Dewgard's relatives, gathered in the
street to say that he should not have been shot.

As part of a continuing federal narcotics investigation by the D.E.A.
and federal prosecutors in the Eastern District in Brooklyn, a team
of about eight agents and four New York police investigators had Mr.
Dewgard under surveillance yesterday, a federal law enforcement
official said.

The agents watched him leave home in the morning and drive to his job
and then to another location, where he picked up what the officers
believed was three kilograms of cocaine, worth $250,000 on the
street. The officers said they turned on their lights and sirens to
stop Mr. Dewgard to arrest him, but he rammed his car into theirs and
drove off, nearly striking a pedestrian with a child. A few blocks
farther, Mr. Dewgard abandoned his Nissan Maxima and ran as an agent
chased him.

"One agent caught up with and tackled Dewgard as he attempted to
avoid arrest," Elizabeth M. Jordan, a spokeswoman for the drug
agency, said in a statement last night. "A violent struggle ensued,
during which time the agent's weapon discharged, striking Dewgard."

Near Mr. Dewgard's body, three kilograms of cocaine were found in a
plastic bag, she said.

No further detail was offered on the circumstances in which the
agent's gun went off. Officials would not say whether they believed
it had been fired accidentally by the agent in self-defense or by the
suspect, who may have grabbed the trigger.

"You don't shoot a man in the back for no reason," said Mr. Dewgard's
cousin, Carla Dewgard, 32, who said he had three young children and
had just taken over running the family business, B & A Printing and
Graphic, on Flatbush Avenue.

Others who said they witnessed the shooting gave conflicting accounts.

"The shooting wasn't necessary because he already fell," Sarah Blair
said. "I did not see any sign of a struggle. Once he fell, they had
him."

But one federal law enforcement official said there was a fierce
struggle before the shooting. "There are civilian witnesses who said
there was a bad scuffle and the agent had his badge drawn and has
asphalt imbedded in his knees and hands," the official said.

The office of the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, is
investigating the shooting, as is standard in such cases.