FBI Director Robert Mueller III was in Pittsburgh today to meet with the family and colleagues of Special Agent Samuel Hicks, who was killed yesterday while he and members of a drug task force tried to arrest a suspect.

Mr. Mueller offered his condolences to Agent Hicks' wife, Brooke, his mother and father, his siblings and members of Mrs. Hicks' family.

Mr. Mueller met with the families for about 30 minutes, said a sister of Agent Hicks, Emily Hicks of Somerset.

"It was very informal, very nice," she said, adding that Mr. Mueller made time to play with the Hickses' son, Noah, 2.

"Director Mueller wanted the survivors to know that they are part of the FBI family," she said.

Agent Hicks was shot about 6 a.m. yesterday as he and several other members of the task force rounded up drug suspects.

After the team smashed in the front door of a home in Indiana Township, a bullet fired from upstairs struck the agent in the shoulder and he bled to death, officials said.

Arrested in the killing was Christina Korbe, who, police said, admitted that she fired a blind shot down the staircase, claiming she didn't know the intruders were police.

Emily Hicks said that if there were any consolation to the tragedy, it was that her 33-year-old brother, an FBI agent since March 2007, "died doing a job he loved."