VAN FIRED ON
OFFICER SHOOTS AT STOLEN VEHICLE
A Calgary officer opened fire Sunday morning after a stolen van drove in the wrong direction on Deerfoot Trail and rammed several police cruisers before being stopped.
The officer fired his gun “believing the driver posed an imminent threat,” said acting Insp. Bruce Walker of the major crimes section, but he declined to elaborate as the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team is now investigating.
The provincial agency in- vestigates events involving police that result in death or serious injury, as well as sensitive allegations of police misconduct.
The events unfolded at 2:20 a.m. when police were called to Deerfoot Trail and Freeport Boulevard N.E. to respond to a report of car prowling, Walker said.
Officers confronted a man and woman as they got into a 2005 Dodge Caravan. The pair managed to escape police, slamming into parked vehicles before they fled down Deerfoot Trail, heading the wrong direction in the northbound lanes, said duty inspector Guy Baker.
“Given the dangerousness of the way this person was driving, we determined very quickly that we had to stop this individual before members of the public were seriously injured or killed,” Baker said.
Police followed the stolen van down Deerfoot Trail to try to stop the driver and keep the public out of the way, he said.
They caught up to the stolen vehicle nearly eight kilometres away on 64th Avenue N.E. near the Deerfoot overpass, where they managed to block the van’s path with patrol cars.
The driver of the van then began ramming police vehicles in an attempt to flee but he was immobilized. Walker said “several” cruisers were rammed in the incident.
At one point, an officer in one of the rammed vehicles believed the driver posed an imminent threat and fired his weapon. Walker would not say how many or where the shots were fired, citing the ongoing ASIRT investigation.
Fire crews were called to help extricate the female passenger from the vehicle. The 26-year-old woman was taken to hospital in stable, non-life threateningcondition,saidEMS spokesman Adam Loria.
The driver, a man in his early 30s, was assessed at the scene and released to police, Loria added. Police said the man is known to them.
Pascal Marchand, a freelance photographer, said he arrived at the scene just as an ambulance was pulling away with a police cruiser following behind.
“I noticed at least three cop cars that were damaged,” Marchand said. “One was right next to the suspect car, and I assume that’s the one that gave the last hit. Two other cop cars were also quite badly damaged.”
He counted about 20 police cruisers, and a couple ambulances and fire trucks at the scene. There were no civilian vehicles in sight at the time, though police had begun to close access to and from 64th Avenue to Deerfoot Trail.
Road closures continued through part of Sunday. Charges were pending. ASIRT spokeswoman Sarah Jackson confirmed the agency was investigating but still in the process of gathering information and could not offer further comment.