Police seek help finding man who threw rock from Rabbit Hill Road overpass
Edmonton police are seeking the public's help identifying a man who may have thrown a rock from an overpass onto Anthony Henday Drive Monday afternoon.
City officers received a report at around 2:30 p.m. of a 2016 Subaru WRX travelling westbound on Anthony Henday Drive that was struck by a rock reportedly thrown from the Rabbit Hill Road overpass, police said in a Wednesday news release. The suspect, described as a younger man wearing a black T-shirt and a dark backpack, headed northbound on foot.
“Throwing any object off an overpass into oncoming traffic is extremely dangerous and we are grateful that the driver did not sustain any physical injuries in this case,” said Const. Janelle Somerville in the news release.
“We are hopeful that a motorist travelling along the Rabbit Hill Road overpass around 2:30 p.m. on April 1 may have dashcam video of the suspect.”
Anyone with dashcam footage of the male suspect on the overpass is asked to contact the EPS at 780423-4567 or #377 from a mobile phone. Anonymous information can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.p3tips.com/250.
POLICE PROBE 10 CASES
Police said investigators are working to determine whether this latest case is connected to 10 other instances where heavy items, including concrete slabs, have been thrown off Whitemud Drive overpasses, some of them striking vehicles below.
The first reported case happened Dec. 23. In nine of the cases, objects were tossed off the 53 Avenue and Whitemud Drive overpass, while one other incident occurred at 99 Street and Whitemud Drive.
On March 6, a large metal object thrown from the Whitemud overpass at 53 Avenue onto a moving vehicle smashed through the windshield of the car and struck a woman, who was sitting in the back seat next to her infant child. The woman was taken to hospital where she was treated for a serious, non-life-threatening injury.
Police arrested Getnet Teklay, 34, in that case and charged him with mischief endangering life, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.
The events are similar to a fatal case back on June 1, 2002, when 75-year-old Robert Stanley was killed when a basketball-sized boulder crashed through the windshield of the charter bus he was driving. The rock had been dumped over the side of a Whitemud Drive pedestrian bridge as a prank by a group of teenagers. It would be years before police tracked them down and two were charged with manslaughter.