According to police, a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed on Saturday as he was trying to stop a suspected drug smuggler along the California-Mexico border.

The agent was struck by the suspect’s car as he was trying to stop it on a road about 20 miles west of Yuma, Arizona.

According to agent Jeremy Schappell, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Yuma sector, the vehicle entered illegally the U.S from Mexico. The accident occurred around 9:30 a.m. in the Imperial Sand Dunes recreation area.

Schappell said: “The agent was laying a spike strip across the road when the vehicle swerved and struck him. He died at the scene,” Reuters reports.

He said that two cars that were suspected of smuggling narcotics crossed the border and were pursued by agents on Interstate 8. Apparently the cars turned around and were heading back to Mexico when they saw they were followed.

After the incident the vehicles fled. The agent died on the spot.

The death is the first one in 2008 for the Border Patrol and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff responded very sharply to it calling it a “heinous” act.

He said in a statement: "Dangerous criminal groups have chosen to respond to our tougher security posture at the border with increased violence. They mistakenly believe that we will give way in the face of violence. We will continue to show them how wrong they are," Los Angeles Times informs.

The statement also said that the accident was being investigated by the FBI and officials from the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The name of the agent wasn’t released yet. It is known that he was working for 6 years in the agency.

According to Schappell, the area where the accident occurred on Saturday is a relatively quiet one regarding the clashes between the Border Patrol agents and smugglers.

Over 880,000 people were arrested by U.S. Border Patrol last year who were caught crossing illegally the border from Mexico and hundreds of tons of narcotics were seized.