3-month-old, grandparents visiting from India killed in 401 crash: SIU
CBC
Ontario's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has released more information about Monday's crash that killed four people, including a three-month-old boy, after police chased a suspect through oncoming traffic on Highway 401 east of Toronto.
Two grandparents, a 60-year-old man and 55-year-old woman, were killed in the collision, said the SIU, the organization that examines deaths involving police in Ontario. Both grandparents were visiting Canada from India, the agency said in a news release.
The infant's parents, a 33-year-old father and 27-year-old mother, were also injured in the crash, the SIU said, adding that they are residents of Ajax, Ont. The parents were in the same car as the grandparents and the baby, according to the news release.
The collision was the result of a police chase that began with an alleged liquor store robbery in Bowmanville, Ont. in the regional municipality of Clarington. Police pursued the suspect as he drove the wrong way on Highway 401 in Whitby, about 50 kilometres east of Toronto.
That chase ended in a fatal collision that involved at least six vehicles, according to the SIU. The robbery suspect was also killed.
On Thursday, the SIU said the suspect was a 21-year-old man. A 38-year-old man who was also in the van remains in hospital with serious injuries, according to the SIU.
There are two officers being investigated and four who have been designated as witness officers, the SIU said. The witness officers will be interviewed and have their notes reviewed, according to Howard Morton, a former SIU director.
The SIU has assigned seven investigators, one forensic investigator and one collision reconstructionist to the case.
Anyone with information, videos or photos is being asked to contact the investigators.
Morton said the SIU will be looking at a number of driving offences that could be laid as a result of the investigation.
"But I think they'll also be looking at offences of criminal negligence causing death, which is one of the more relatively serious offences set out in our Criminal Code," he said in an interview with CBC News Wednesday.
Morton said investigators will also look to speak to people who worked on radio dispatch and were in charge during the pursuit.
He said the investigation won't be over quickly.
"I think you're looking at a real long timeframe here," he said.