A call about a suspicious vehicle ended with a Ford Bronco sitting atop a Peel police cruiser at a Tim Hortons drive-thru in Mississauga Tuesday.
Peel police said they received a call at around 6:30 p.m. from an individual who was concerned about a person in the area of Westwood Square shopping mall, near Goreway Drive and Etude Drive. The man had allegedly stolen items from a store a couple of weeks ago and had returned with weapons, police said.
Police located the vehicle and determined that it had been stolen.
Officers surrounded the stolen vehicle and a number of cruisers were then damaged, police said.
Video circulating on social media shows the large red and black Bronco sitting atop the cruiser.
In the video, police arrive to box in the vehicle at what appears to be a drive-thru window. The driver initially tries to reverse, but sees that he cannot back away. An officer then gets out of his vehicle and points a gun at the passenger-side window and tries to instruct the driver.
After a moment, the vehicle is then seen accelerating forward and attempting to go over the police cruiser to escape. However, the vehicle is unable to fully mount the cruiser and eventually backs off, revealing a shattered front window on the cruiser.
The scene unfolded on a warm evening while it was still light out, before a crowd of onlookers.
The sequence of events “was terrifying,” a witness told CP24.
“I honestly thought they (police) were going to shoot,” he said.
He said police Tazed the suspect when he eventually climbed out of the passenger-side window, and officers then tackled him.
The driver was eventually taken into custody by police. They said Wednesday that 25-year-old Ramanpreet Singhhas been charged with three counts of possession of property obtained by crime, flight from a peace officer, dangerous operation, and obstructing a police officer.
He has been held for a bail hearing.
The suspect sustained minor injuries in the incident, police said.
Call could have ended in ‘tragedy’: police
Speaking with CP24, Peel police Cons. Tyler Bell said that with the rise in auto thefts, police have had to step up their tactics as well.
“Sadly as we’ve seen over the last year-and-a-half, the rapid increase in stolen vehicles, with that comes increased tactics that we have to use to try and prevent these dangerous situations from unfolding and having tragic consequences,” Bell said.
He praised the work of the officers who responded to the call and said the situation could have ended in “tragedy” instead.
“Peel police are no strangers here to officers being rammed in their cruisers, and that is very much demonstrated by the tactics that the officers took pinning in the vehicle the way they did,” Bell said.
“It was excellent, excellent police tactics, excellent execution of the blocks that we are trained to do. It’s very dynamic, and it happens very, very quickly, and it can end in absolute tragedy. We’ve seen a number of police officers killed this way, so we’re very fortunate that that it ended the way that it did.”