KAWARTHA LAKES, Canada — A 1-year-old child who had been abducted by his old man in Canada, was fatally shot as cops opened fire on the father’s vehicle after he ran down and seriously injured an officer.
Investigators have not yet confirmed if police gunfire killed the boy.
“It’s too early for us to know why officers fired at the vehicle, and it’s too early for us to know exactly what transpired,” said Monica Hudon, a spokeswoman for the province’s police watchdog.
Early on Thursday morning, officers in the community of Kawartha Lakes in Ontario were alerted to a domestic dispute involving a firearm and the suspected abduction of the 1-year-old by his father.
Police soon located the father’s vehicle along a rural country road. After police attempted to stop him, the truck collided with a police car and another vehicle. An officer who was standing near the police car was struck by the truck and injured.
Three officers then fired their guns towards the vehicle, according to the Special Investigations Unit, an agency that investigates when police are involved in the death or injury of civilians. The child was in the back seat of the pickup truck.
“Inside the pickup truck was a one-year-old boy,” the SIU said in a statement. “He had sustained a gunshot wound and was pronounced deceased at the scene.”
The 33-year-old father was struck by police gunfire and brought to a hospital “in grave condition”. The officer who was hit by the truck is recovering at a Toronto hospital.
A later SIU statement said investigators had seized the guns from each of the three officers involved plus a fourth weapon found inside the vehicle of the abductor.
