Car crushed, police officer dead in Vegas freeway beam fall

Las Vegas: A Las Vegas police officer was the person killed when a steel crossbar marking low clearance at a freeway construction project was hit by a passing truck and collapsed atop his vehicle. A police procession on US 95 to the downtown Clark County coroner's office followed the removal of the officer's body more than six hours after the 7 am incident at US 95 and the 215 Beltway in northwest Las Vegas.

Department information officers did not immediately respond to messages, and the officer's name was not immediately made public.

It was not immediately clear if he was on-duty at the time. Union chief Steve Grammas, executive director of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, said the vehicle was a department-issued car. Las Vegas Fire and Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski told the Las Vegas Review-Journal there was one person in the vehicle and bystanders tried to provide aid before paramedics and Nevada Highway Patrol troopers arrived. Justin Hopkins, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Transportation, told the newspaper an oversized piece of construction equipment towed on a trailer dislodged the beam erected as a height warning for trucks approaching the overpass work zone.