Quebec’s police watchdog is investigating after a driver travelling the wrong way on a provincial highway while being chased by police struck another vehicle Friday night, killing its occupant.
The agency, known as the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI), says police received multiple calls around 10 p.m. that night reporting a vehicle travelling in the wrong lane on Highway 55 near Trois-Rivières, Que., northeast of Montreal.
It issued a news release saying a pair of provincial police officers activated their cruiser’s lights and siren before heading towards the area where the suspect vehicle was spotted.
It says the officers saw the vehicle’s lights coming towards them and pulled into a lane designated for emergency vehicles.
The agency says the officers reported the vehicle passed them without slowing down and they heard a crash immediately afterwards.
It offered no details about the person killed in the collision, but said the driver of the suspect vehicle was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The BEI will investigate the actions of provincial police before the crash, while Montreal police will conduct a parallel criminal investigation into the driver’s actions.