There are days when officers are lucky to go home to their families at night, and the day these officers intercepted a stolen vehicle was one of them.
A high-powered stolen car would not stop, despite the efforts of multiple police cruisers. Driving erratically through several Oshawa subdivisions around lunchtime on May 30, 2012, the vehicle avoided the police, smashed into parked vehicles and kept racing around. Constables Gerry Suthers and Tracey Weightman tried numerous times to stop it by blocking it in and confronting the driver. As he evaded capture and kept speeding away, they contacted all available units to help.
As the driver came barreling toward pedestrians standing at the corner of Hillside Avenue and Park Road South, Constable Ryan Mintz knew what he had to do. He shielded the pedestrians with his unmarked cruiser and took the brunt of the blow. But that still didn’t stop the suspect, who then sped toward two nearby schools, heading directly for a school crossing guard.
In a split second, Constable Darryl Rice knew what to do. He drove into the path of the stolen car, stopping it from driving into the crossing guard. But even that collision didn’t end things. It also took a round of bullets from the gun of Constable Chris Giasson for the dangerous offender to finally stop the nightmare.
Later, the man was assessed as being not criminally responsible for his actions. Miraculously, no one was seriously injured that day but our officers couldn’t avoid the emotional impact. After the incident was over, one officer thanked his fellow officer for making sure he made it home to his wife and kids that night.
