Gunshot wounds ‘neither caused nor contributed to’ man’s death: coroner
Austin Eaglechief was not struck by either of the pistol rounds a Saskatoon police officer fired at the stolen truck he was driving last Monday night, moments before a high-speed chase through the city’s north end concluded with his death in a collision with another vehicle at the intersection of Airport Drive and Circle Drive.
A forensic autopsy conducted last week concluded that neither gunshot wounds nor firearms contributed to the 22-year-old’s death, the office of the coroner said in a statement. Eaglechief died of “blunt force trauma secondary to a high speed collision,” police spokeswoman Alyson Edwards said Monday in an email.
The incident began shortly after 9 p.m. on June 19, when police followed the stolen truck to a quiet cul-de-sac in River Heights and attempted to stop it. Police Chief Clive Weighill told reporters last week that officers shot at the truck when it smashed into a police cruiser, pushing it more than 100 feet into a residential driveway, before driving away at high speed.
Noel LaBrash was driving home to Hampton Village after a hockey game when the stolen truck plowed into his white pickup, moments after the shots were fired in River Heights.
“I just remember thinking, like, ‘Holy crap, I just got hammered, hard. Am I OK?’ ” LaBrash said hours after collision, which left him with scrapes and bruises but no serious injuries.
It remains unclear if any of the rounds fired in River Heights hit the truck. Edwards confirmed that the vehicle’s other passenger, an unidentified 33-year-old man who has since been arrested, was uninjured. The incident will be investigated by an outside police agency, Weighill told reporters last week.
Austin Eaglechief was intelligent and liked to read, according to his mother, Agatha Eaglechief. He received disability payments for anxiety and depression, and was ultimately unable to escape the relentless cycle of drugs, gangs and crime, she said, adding he also struggled to cope with a justice system that uses breach charges to punish young people who are trying to improve their lives.
“My son had an unfair life,” Eaglechief said in an emotional interview less than a day after Saskatoon police officers showed up at her Confederation Park home to tell her that Austin’s body had been found behind the wheel of the wrecked truck.
She added that the decision to shoot at the truck likely triggered Austin’s anxiety, causing him to flee.