RED DEER, Alta. — Mounties in Alberta are appealing to the public for eyewitnesses, video or photos of a suspect who allegedly smashed vehicles with a stolen front-end loader on Christmas Day before police finally shot him.
The 37-year-old man from the Red Deer area died, and Alberta's Serious Incident Response Team which investigates police shootings has taken over the investigation into his death.
RCMP, however, say they are still investigating the other events that led to the final confrontation in a field near the central Alberta city.
Police say the man was a suspect in a serious sexual assault of a 47-year-old woman and the attempted murder of a 20-year-old man early Friday.
They say he was spotted later in the day operating a stolen front-end loader and colliding with numerous unoccupied vehicles in an industrial park in northwest Red Deer.
Police say at one point he hit an unoccupied police car, but they say no officers or members of the public were hurt during the crashes.
They say the man knew the victims of the alleged sex assault and attempted murder, and that they're not identifying him in order to protect the victims' identities.
