More details have been released by Durham Regional Police about officers pursuing a robbery suspect vehicle that ended up driving the wrong way on Highway 401 killing four people.
“Officers lost sight of the vehicle,” the report read.
The report was made to the Durham Regional Police Service Board as part of an update into the multiple SIU investigations involving officers from the service. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) investigates the conduct of officers in serious incidents that have resulted in death and is probing the incident.
According to the report, Durham police had received a call from an off-duty officer about a robbery from an LCBO in Clarington, Ont. on April 29. The suspect had allegedly pulled a knife on the off-duty officer who intervened during the theft.
The suspect then fled the LCBO in a white U-Haul van headed westbound on Highway 2, the report read. The officer had followed the van until marked cruisers caught up.
But then officers lost sight of the vehicle and a brief time later it was located in Oshawa, according to the report.
“The suspect vehicle struck a cruiser and entered eastbound Highway 401, traveling in the opposite direction of traffic,” the report continued. “Officers engaged and pursued the suspect vehicle onto eastbound Highway 401, traveling westbound.”
“The pursuit ended with the suspect vehicle being involved in a multi-vehicle head-on collision, resulting in 4 fatalities.”
The multi-vehicle collision involved at least six vehicles on Highway 401, just east of Highway 412, in Whitby, resulting in the death of a child, aged three months, a grandmother, age 55, and a grandfather, age 60.
The parents of the three-month-old child were also in the car and survived the crash.
The 21-year-old man who was driving the U-Haul also died at the scene. A 38-year-old man, who was a passenger in the cargo van was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
Police officers and emergency dispatchers in Durham Region have been instructed to complete a mandatory training course on suspect pursuits within the next two months in light of the wrong-way highway crash.