A federal case has been filed against a man charged with assaulting a Border Patrol agent in a remote border stretch in Cochise County. 

Case filings say an unnamed Border Patrol agent responded to a location near Hereford, Arizona, southeast of Sierra Vista, where a surveillance tower detected a group of three people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. 

It says the agent found two of the people and was attempting to take one into custody when a third man hit him in the head and tackled him to the ground. 

According to the filing the man — later identified as Rey David Marquez-Jimenez — had a knife that he held to the agent’s throat. Marquez-Jimenez fled and was later apprehended by additional agents. After he was in custody, the filing says he admitted to holding the knife to the agent. 

Marquez-Jimenez is charged with assaulting a federal officer. A preliminary hearing is set for Feb. 8.