Truck owner killed in theft
Suspect at large after victim dies outside home
A 33-year-old man died Friday after he was run over trying to stop a man from stealing his truck.
The thief was being chased by police at the time as a suspect in an investigation involving another stolen vehicle.
“He was making sure he was going to get away,” said Nicole Nault, one of numerous witnesses to the incident in the Beverly neighbourhood just before 9 a.m. “I don’t think he had any concern about who was hanging on to the vehicle whatsoever.”
The victim was killed in front of the Parkridge Estates townhouse complex at 2908 116 A Ave., just metres away from where he lived. Nault said the man’s wife witnessed the incident.
The suspect is a tall, aboriginal man in his 30s, with a medium build, who was wearing a red shirt with white horizontal stripes.
The truck that was stolen from the victim, a blue, 2006 Dodge Ram quad cab, was found downtown early Friday evening and taken to a police lot for forensics investigation. The suspect was nowhere in sight.
Police Insp. Brian Nowlan said the incident began about 8 a.m. when a police officer spotted a stolen Ford F150 truck downtown. Police said the truck took off before it could be stopped. Because of traffic, police did not chase the vehicle at the time, but broadcast a description and the licence plate, Nowlan said.
Beat officers spotted the stolen Ford in a parking lot near 112th Avenue and 34th Street about 9 a.m. A person pointed out a man and a woman who had been watching police from around the side of a building. The couple ran.
Nowlan said officers chased the couple on foot and caught the woman. Nowlan said an officer was still running after the man when he saw him get into the blue Dodge Ram, which was idling in the laneway of the townhouse complex. Nowlan said the officer saw the victim come from a nearby yard and “drape himself over” the back end of the vehicle. Nowlan said the victim ended up underneath the vehicle and was run over. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Nault said she was walking back from the store when she heard screaming and the sound of squealing tires. She looked up to see her neighbour trying to get into his truck while the driver took off.
“He pinned it, and the gentleman got sucked under the wheels,” she said.
She said the driver took off so fast she saw smoke coming from the truck. Vutha Sor, who had just dropped his children off at school, estimated the truck sped by him at least 150 km/h.
Nowlan said police believe the driver then went south into nearby Rundle Park but drove out of the busy park through the grass. There were tire tracks on the grass and on the road at 102nd Avenue.
A large area around the townhouse was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape for hours after the fatality, as the specialized collision investigation unit and other officers worked. Two ambulances were parked inside the tape, and a small pile of clothing and personal effects was in the middle of the road. Homicide investigators are the lead investigators in the case. Because the fatality happened in the course of a police pursuit, Alberta’s Serious Incident Response Team is conducting a separate investigation.
Nault described the victim and his wife as a “nice, normal couple,” who had moved into the complex not long ago. Other neighbours said the couple has two children.
Neighbour Scott Pfeifle was in his suite across the road when he heard somebody screaming, and “tires peeling out.”
“I looked out and saw the truck bounce, and then I didn’t watch anything else, I just ran out of my house,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do, I just knew I needed to do something. A guy had been run over.”
Seeing there was nothing they could do for the victim, both Nault and Pfeifle tried to comfort the man’s wife.
Other witnesses were too shaken to talk about what they had seen. One man shook his head as he walked away, tears in his eyes.