A man is in custody after Calgary police were involved in a high-speed chase on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway between Calgary and Edmonton Friday afternoon.
RCMP Cpl. Curtis Peters told Global News the man was driving a stolen truck, and there was something wrong with the vehicle from the onset.
The truck was driving on three wheels before coming to a stop near Didsbury.
“People are driving on that road unaware of what’s coming up behind them,” Peters said. “It puts all those people at risk, plus our officers are put at risk, plus that person puts themselves at risk.”
“Completely unacceptable”
After hitting the ditch near the Didsbury exit, Peters said the man tried to run away before he was arrested by police.
The Doyle family from Innisfail own the truck. They told Global News they were in Red Deer to have their RV serviced, and had just hitched their brand-new truck to the RV when someone jumped into the truck and stole it and the RV around 2:30 p.m.
“I saw the truck move. I thought it was (my husband) moving it,” Dianna Doyle said. She was inside the shop at the time.
“I was out of the truck for less than two minutes,” Perry Doyle said.
The driver then ditched the RV in Red Deer and kept going. The Doyles said they don’t know why their brand-new truck only had three wheels.
“There was nothing wrong with the truck,” Perry said. “We just bought it. Haven’t even made a payment on it yet.”
The driver then ditched the RV and kept going.
The owners of the truck say they’d been looking for their truck all afternoon, and when they heard about a high-speed chase, they decided to drive out to see if it was their vehicle.
Shortly after the man was arrested, the owners of the truck arrived at the scene, saying they were thankful to have found their truck. The woman’s purse was still inside the truck.
Traffic is moving slowly on the highway near Didsbury, as RCMP investigate a nearby three-car collision that happened shortly after police arrived at the scene of the stolen truck.
— With files from Global’s Kim Smith