Officers cleared in wild chase
Durham Regional Police and OPP police officers have been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in the death of a man who killed himself after a wild pursuit on Highway 401 in January. The 45-year-old man, who has not been identified, died of self-inflicted injuries caused by a machete after a vehicle he had hi- jacked was disabled by a spike belt and police closed in at the intersec- tion of highways 401 and 35/115 in Clarington in January, according to a report by Joseph Martino, direc- tor of the Special Investigations Unit. The vehicle sped west along the highway from Cobourg, reach- ing speeds of 170 km/h, the report says. Martino found no officer in- volved caused the injuries that led to the man’s death. The incident began on the morning of Jan. 9 af- ter an aggressive driver had been involved in a two-vehicle collision on eastbound Hwy. 401 at Highway 28 in Port Hope. After rushing at vehicles on the highway the man fled the scene on foot, leaving a handgun on the seat of his vehicle, according to the report. He then crossed over Hwy. 401 and walked to a Tim Hortons restaurant, where he forced his way into the back seat of a Dodge Ram in the drive-thru line and threatened two occupants with a machete, ordering the man to drive away from the ONroute service centre. The truck tore away from the restaurant and entered the westbound lanes of Hwy. 401 with OPP officers in pursuit. The truck struck a spike belt deployed by OPP on the highway near Newcastle and proceeded west with two flat tires. The driver steered the disabled truck into the northbound lanes of Hwy. 35/115, where it was forced off the roadway by converging police cruisers, according to the report. As the truck came to a stop, the two civilians who had been abducted leapt from the vehicle. As police closed in, the suspect “turned the weapon on himself and cut his neck,” the report says. “He quickly lapsed into unconsciousness and lost vital signs.” Martino found that tactics used by police during the pursuit carried a certain amount of risk to the public but that under the circumstances, they were reasonable. The SIU investigates incidents of death or serious injury involving police.