Nearly simultaneous car crashes, police standoff shake east Edmonton neighbourhood

Two crashes happened in east Edmonton blocks apart overnight, with one ending in a police standoff. CTV News Edmonton's Amanda Anderson has more.

Two crashes, one of which appears to have ended in a police standoff, while the other is being investigated by the province’s police watchdog, unfolded in an east Edmonton neighbourhood Thursday night.

Just before 11 p.m. Thursday, police saw a vehicle driving dangerously around 137 Avenue and 66 Street. Edmonton Police Service (EPS) says officers tried to do a traffic stop, but the driver sped off and wasn’t pursued.

Carlos Robles was witness to what happened after that.

EPS says the driver made it to the 66 Street and 118 Avenue area before losing control, going through a parking lot and hitting a brick wall and garbage bin.

Robles came out to see what had caused a house-shaking boom around the same time.

He began taking a video of the accident as he ran to check if anyone was hurt. That’s when the police appeared.

“(They were) saying, ‘Put your hands up,’” he recalled the next day. “And then the whole place is surrounded by the police drones, helicopters and the canines as well.”

Around the same time, a marked cop car responding to that crash with lights and sirens had a collision with another vehicle along 118 Avenue at Wayne Gretzky Drive, according to EPS.

One woman, who police say was driving, was taken to hospital with serious, non-life-threatening injuries. An EPS officer was treated for minor injuries.

Robles mentioned that he also saw a crash a few blocks down from his place – near a bus stop at Wayne Gretzky Drive.

“They blocked that whole area completely as well … To think about how that occurred and this occurred kind of almost at the same time, minutes apart, it’s kind of crazy,” Robles said.

Meanwhile, at the garbage bin near 66 Street, police say the driver was refusing to leave the vehicle.

Robles says the standoff near his house lasted until 2:30 in the morning.

“They were bickering, going back and forth, negotiating a trade off … to get him out of the truck,” Robles said.

The driver was ultimately taken into custody and now faces criminal flight and dangerous driving charges.

Both collisions are being investigated by the EPS major collisions team.

EPS says it has referred the crash involving the officer to the province’s police watchdog, the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT).

EPS says it’s unable to give any other information as ASIRT investigates the crash that sent a woman to the hospital.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson