BORDER PATROL OFFICER KILLED IN CALIFORNIA ATTEMPT TO STOP ROGUE VEHICLE

A Border Patrol officer was run over and killed on Saturday as he attempted to lay a spike strip to stop a speeding Hummer in the sand dunes of Imperial County. Authorities in El Centro and Yuma, Ariz. said the agent was killed in the line of duty along the Mexican border in the Algodones sand dunes, 110 miles east of San Diego. Federal agents from San Diego rushed to the area to oversee the investigation.

The California Highway Patrol closed freeway ramps at Grey's Well Road, between Yuma and El Centro, but traffic on Interstate 8 itself was not affected. Border Patrol agents in Yuma said the agent was deploying a spike strip to puncture the tires on two vehicles fleeing federal officers when he was run over and killed.

The Yuma Daily Sun reported that the two vehicles, the Hummer that hit the agent and an accompanying Ford F-150 pickup truck, were being chased west on I-8 from a checkpoint near Yuma. As the cars exited the freeway at Grey's Well Road, the agent was struck. The vehicles sped south through sand dunes towards Mexico. Interstate 8 is less than one mile north of Baja California at that location, and the two vehicles were last seen speeding towards Mexico federal Highway 2 east of Mexicali. The sand dunes are a popular off-road vehicle playground, and the border fence in the area is frequently overrun by some of them.