Bizarre BC Truck Chase

MAPLE
RIDGE - A crazed, naked man stole a large transport truck truck and led
police on a half-hour chase through rush-hour traffic Monday morning
after allegedly threatening to blow up a bridge.

Just before 6:30 a.m., a nude man appeared at a Pitt Meadows farm, where he stole coveralls and a five-ton truck.

"(People
at the farm) confronted him, but he was acting so erratically that
common sense prevailed and they just backed off," said RCMP traffic
services spokesman Const. Dave Babineau.

A
call from the farm alerted police, who pulled the truck over in Pitt
Meadows. When officers approached the truck, the 49-year-old driver
uttered a threat, Babineau said.

"What he did say was he was going to go blow up a bridge and they'd never catch him," Babineau said.

Police
backed off and followed the truck at a distance, because they didn't
know if the man were armed or had explosives, Babineau said.

Babineau
acknowledged it may appear the officer in the SUV deliberately hit the
suspect, but investigation is needed to determine whether it was
intentional or accidental.

MAPLE RIDGE - A car chase on the Lougheed Highway ended around 7:30 this morning when an unmarked police car slammed into the fugitive driver as they tried to flee on foot.

Eight police cars quickly surrounded the injured suspect, and paramedics arrived shortly afterward.

The chase, in which the driver of a large cargo truck swerved back and forth across lanes of traffic on the Lougheed Highway between Mission and Maple Ridge and hit at least one vehicle - a parked police car - in its path, lasted about half an hour, even as the truck's left rear tire appeared to be blown out.

The chase ended when the truck faltered going uphill, then began backing up into oncoming traffic. The truck came to a stop in a ditch and the driver tried to run across the highway when he was hit. He has been loaded into an ambulance.

The eastbound lanes of Lougheed Highway are closed at Kanaka until further notice.