Veteran officer says Saskatoon cops need better equipment for pursuits of souped-up trucks

The weapon'sweight is measured in tons.

Saskatoon police faced off against a stolen Chevy Silverado 2500 over two nights inJune 2017. It was modified with larger wheels, a suspended cab and metal grills on the front and back.

According to Chevrolet, it weighs 6,625 pounds more than three tons without the modifications.

This week, at the inquest into the death of Austin Eaglechief, officer after officer testified about the truck's intimidating size. Eaglechief, 22, led police on a high-speed chase on June 19, 2017. He died when the stolen truck collided with another truck near the airport.

On Wednesday, Sgt. Aaron Moserdirectly addressed what officers face.

"It's frustrating to have to deal with those incidents repeatedly and not have the right equipment," he said.

• Saskatoon police's high-risk takedown policy questioned at Austin Eaglechief inquest

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Moser said that police first came across thetruck June 18, the evening before the fatal crash. It had been reported stolenand then spotted by patrol officers.

Their pursuit was called off after less than five minutes because of the driver's erratic manouevering, its speed and because the police plane was not in the air to provide support.

"It was being driven very dangerously," Moser said.

Moser became involved in the fatal pursuit the next night. He testified how he heard on the radio about the initial surveillance of the truck by the police planeand the attempted high-risk takedown at Clearwater Place that lead to a police cruiser getting rammed and shots fired.

Moser and another officer realized that deliberately ramming the stolen truck, while incredibly risky, was their last resort. They left the police station with two cruisers outfitted with "push bars" mounted on the front for added protection.

"My plan was to hit it as hard as I could to disable it," he said.

Moser and the second officer intercepted the stolen truck on Circle Drive and watched it crash about about 30 seconds later.The truck jumped a concrete medianand clipped a light standard before hitting another truck.

"Itwas a hellacious collision," Mosersaid.

When questioned by coroner TimHawryluk, Moser said that one immediate and practical improvement would be to make a vehicle with a push bar availableto each shift and not have to request one from the station.

He suggested that police may then have been able to contain the stolen truck at Clearwater Place, but saidhe wasn't certain.

"We had a highly-motivated suspect who used a vehicle as a weapon," he said.

Pathologist Shaun Ladham testified that Eaglechief died within seconds of the collision from multiple fractures to his skull. He described the injuries as lethal and non-survivable.

Ladham said there was no evidence that Eaglechief had been shot.