On May 8, 1919, at 10:15 p.m., Mounted Watchman Charles Lloyd Hopkins was shot by smugglers on the banks of the Rio Grande River, near Laredo, Texas. He died three hours later in Mercy Hospital, Laredo. Reportedly, the shot which killed Mounted Watchman Hopkins was the first shot fired in a general gun battle between smugglers and federal officers in which a United States Public Health Service Guard, Ira Hill, and several of the Mexican smugglers were also killed.