Baltimore officer dies after crash

A Baltimore police officer has died after crashing his cruiser into a city fire engine that was stopped on a highway.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says 32-year-old Officer Tommy Portz went into cardiac arrest after the crash around 10 a.m. on U.S. 40 in west Baltimore. He died at a trauma center.

Police are investigating the crash. It’s not clear whether Portz was responding to a call or had his lights and sirens activated.

Portz was a nine-year veteran and becomes the third city officer to be killed in the span of less than a month. In September, Officer James Fowler died in a car accident on his way to a training exercise, and Detective Brian Stevenson was slain over the weekend after a fight over a parking space.

-- Associated Press