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Pennsauken police officer dies in crash

    by Frank Kummer - Philly.com Staff
    Published 

An off-duty Pennsauken Township police offier was killed in a pre-dawn car crash Saturday, according to a release by the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and Pennsauken Police Department.

Authorities say Officer Thomas J. Soto, 27, of Pennsauken, died in the crash on the Black Horse Pike near White Avenue in Mount Ephraim about 4:40 a.m.

Soto was heading north on the Black Horse Pike in a 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe when his vehicle crossed into oncoming traffic and hit a Pathmark tractor trailer, authorities said.

A passenger in Soto's vehicle, relative Thomas A. Cruz-Soto, of New York, was injured and was being treated at Cooper University Hospital in Camden Saturday, the press release said.

The truck driver, Lawrence J. Bochard, of Fords, NJ, was uninjured. The cause of the accident is under investigation.

Soto joined the Pennsauken Police Department in July of 2006. Prior to that he worked as a civilian special officer for about two years.