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Mountie Dies After Cruiser Hit By Truck on Main Highway South of Edmonton

Posted on: Monday, 4 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

MILLET, Alta. (CP) - A Mountie was killed and another officer injured Monday after a parked cruiser was rammed by a truck on a flat, straight section of the main highway south of Edmonton, RCMP say.

A female officer in another cruiser was taken to hospital with undetermined injuries and released. The driver of the truck was being questioned by police.

The death was another blow to the Alberta RCMP still recovering from the fatal shooting of four officers near Mayerthorpe in March. James Roszko gunned down the Mounties on his farm before taking his own life.

"The RCMP is investigating a fatality involving a member of the Wetaskiwin detachment," Cpl. Al Fraser said.

"It is just a shock. There is a great deal of pain in our organization here with Mayerthorpe and this incident. I can only imagine what they are going through right now in Wetaskiwin."

The officer killed Monday was responding to another traffic accident when his vehicle was struck from behind, said Jules Xavier, a photographer with the Wetaskiwin Times-Advertiser who was on the scene moments after the crash.

"The semi-trailer smacked into the back of the cruiser, forcing it across the north lanes of the QE2, across the median, and across the southbound lanes into the ditch on the southbound side," Xavier said.

"By that time the vehicle was just crumpled up like an accordion."

Xavier said the officer's body was removed from the wreckage and a crew member from an air ambulance unsuccessfully tried to revive him.

The officer was then covered with a blanket, put in a yellow body bag and placed into an ambulance as other RCMP officers hugged each other in grief, he said.

"They pronounced him, then they wrapped him up in a yellow tarp, took all his guns and everything. I knew the guy."

The name of the dead officer was not released. He leaves a wife and a child.

Traffic was rerouted from the Queen Elizabeth Highway near Millet onto secondary roads and highways for hours as police investigated the accident.

Queen Elizabeth Highway is the main north-south thoroughfare between Edmonton and Calgary.

The stretch of highway where the accident occurred is straight and level. Visibility in the area at the time of the accident was good, Fraser said.

"The road is straight as an arrow. You have a minimum two kilometre sightline" he said.

"Not a hill, not a mound, not a dip. Straight."

Formerly known as Highway 2, it was given the new name by the province to honour the Queen during her recent centennial visit to Alberta.

Millet is about 50 kilometres south of Edmonton.

Source: Canadian Press

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