By Shane Holladay, The Edmonton Sun
Mounties have identified a man allegedly responsible for putting two Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers in hospital with a police cruiser.
Gary John Reber, 35, faces 11 charges including two counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm, two counts of aggravated assault, possession and vehicle theft charges, and a break and enter charge.
“Reber was arrested at about 10 p.m. (Monday) night after he had barricaded himself into a residence in the Josephburg area near Fort Saskatchewan,” RCMP Cpl. Steve Irwin said in a release. “That investigation is still under investigation as well as other related incidents throughout Alberta. Charges are pending on those investigations.”
Reber’s grandmother, Helen Reber, said her grandson was a nice kid when he was growing up, but is now out of contact with his family. “He just dropped out of sight for a while,” she said.
RCMP say events began with a vehicle-stop Monday at 2:15 p.m. which left two officers with broken bones after they tried to stop a man from stealing a police car.
Two men, identified by police as 30-year-old Roger Johnson and 27-year-old Christopher Robert Warren, had been detained by the two RCMP officers just north of Beaumont. They have been charged with one count each of possession of stolen property.
During the vehicle stop, police say, Reber got into Beaumont RCMP Const. Fleming Kaastrup’s cruiser.
Leduc RCMP Cpl. Steve Daley, who was at the scene with his own cruiser, tried with Kaastrup to stop the vehicle from being stolen. But a struggle followed, during which the officers were struck with the cruiser, and one may have been dragged. Daley suffered a broken ankle and Kaastrup’s hip was dislocated and broken, said police.
The suspect drove away across a field, and allegedly stole other vehicles before ending up in Fort Saskatchewan.