Outside agency will investigate fatal car pursuit
Shots fired before stolen truck slammed into police vehicle
A Saskatoon police officer shattered the calm hanging over a residential cul-de-sac by firing two rounds at a speeding stolen truck — apparently missing the men inside with both shots — minutes before the truck’s driver died in a high-speed crash on Circle Drive and moments after he rammed a Saskatoon police cruiser in River Heights.
Now, an outside police officer will oversee an investigation into the Monday night car chase, which left the 22-year-old driver dead and a police officer briefly hospitalized with neck and hip injuries, according to Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill, who held a news conference Tuesday afternoon about the incident and its aftermath.
“It certainly could have been much worse, specifically when the vehicle rammed the police car. It pushed it about 100 feet, right off the cul-de-sac into a driveway. Severe damage was done to the police vehicle,” Weighill told reporters almost 17 hours after the two pistol shots rang out in the city’s north end.
The chase began shortly after 9 p.m. Monday when the police air support unit, which was tracking a stolen truck, saw it park on Clearwater Place and two men and a woman get out.
Police officers tried to arrest the suspects. The two men got back into the truck after seeing the police cruiser, while the woman ran away.
Witnesses reported hearing a revving engine and the sound of gunfire as the black truck rammed the police cruiser and sped away from the scene, leaving automotive fluid streaked across the cul-desac. Weighill said a pursuing police car activated its lights as the truck reached the intersection of Circle Drive and Idylwyld Drive.
Seconds later, the truck — which reached speeds of up to 150 km/ h — hit a second truck head-on at the intersection of Circle Drive and Airport Drive.
The driver of the stolen truck was pronounced dead at the scene. The 33-year-old passenger was taken to hospital and later arrested on multiple outstanding warrants. A firearm and ammunition were found inside the vehicle.
The driver of the vehicle that was struck by the stolen truck was taken to hospital as a precaution and later released.
“He was absolutely lucky,” Weighill said.
A visibly frustrated Weighill said the stolen truck had been sitting with its keys inside when it was stolen from a north end neighbourhood. He said about 65 per cent of vehicles stolen in the city have their keys left in them.
“They’re just a target waiting to happen when your keys are left in there,” he said, noting that big trucks are the vehicle of choice for people who steal cars to commit crimes and go on joyrides, because they are difficult to stop.
“We have a system here that could prevent a lot of this: By people not leaving their keys in the car,” Weighill said, noting there have now been four deaths in two years connected with stolen vehicles that had been left with the keys inside.
Weighill said the officers who responded to the incident “did what they thought was right,” and acknowledged they would have been operating with a heightened sense of urgency given that a colleague had been injured.
He said it’s always a tough decision to decide whether to pursue a stolen vehicle and the increasing number of these incidents puts police “in a very tough spot.”
“Do we just let them drive around and do crimes and not stop them?”
Noel LaBrash, who was in line to turn left on Airport Drive, didn’t see the black truck barrelling toward him, with police in pursuit, until it was too late to do anything except grab the steering wheel and brace for the inevitable.
It came seconds later, an impact harder than anything he had ever experienced in a vehicle.
“I just remember thinking, like, ‘Holy crap, I just got hammered, hard. Am I OK?’ ” LaBrash said Tuesday.
He said an officer approached his vehicle to check on him while others approached the stolen truck with guns drawn. His injuries turned out to be nothing more serious than some scrapes and bruises.
“I thought to myself, ‘I’m lucky to be alive.’ To hear the other man in there didn’t make it, it’s unfortunate, but it makes you think you’re lucky to be alive. Anything can happen to anyone at any time,” he said.
Weighill said the police air support unit has video footage of the entire incident and it has been secured as evidence. Executive staff with the police service will do an internal investigation and submit a report to the Saskatchewan Police Commission. The justice ministry will assign a member from another police force to oversee the investigation.
An autopsy of the deceased driver is scheduled for Thursday. Police are still looking for the woman who was seen by at least one witness fleeing the River Heights culde-sac on foot.