Man shot dead by police after chase near Hardisty

Alberta’s police watchdog has been called in to investigate the fatal officer-involved shooting of a 32-yearold man after a police chase east of Edmonton Sunday night.

At around 5:20 p.m., police were pursuing a truck on Highway 13 near Hardisty, about 200 km southeast of Edmonton. Police said several tire deflation devices were used to stop the truck, which eventually entered a ditch. A man got out of the truck and a confrontation followed in which RCMP officers discharged their weapons.

The man was treated on scene by emergency medical services and taken to an Edmonton hospital where he later died. No police officers were injured. Police said in a news release that a replica handgun was recovered in the snow outside of the suspect’s vehicle door.

RCMP officers from Killam, Provost and Wainwright, and the Eastern Alberta District Crime Reduction Unit, were involved in the attempted arrest. Police said the truck is the same dark-coloured Ram that twice rammed a police truck earlier that day.

At around 3:15 a.m. Sunday, RCMP received a report of suspicious vehicles in the hamlet of Galahad, about 60 km west of Hardisty.

Police found one of the vehicles at Township Road 410 and Range Road 125. When police tried to stop it, the vehicle fled. Officers caught up to the truck, and it tried to flee again, smashing into an RCMP truck twice, leaving it inoperable.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team will investigate the shooting and the actions of the officers. The RCMP will investigate the actions of the man and the events leading up to the confrontation with police, police said.