The Gardiner Expressway has fully reopened in the city’s downtown core this morning after investigators say a carjacking suspect fell 17 metres while fleeing from officers on the elevated portion of the highway.
In a news release, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), which has invoked its mandate, said police were initially called to the Shops at Don Mills at around 11 p.m. for reports of armed carjacking at the mall, located on Don Mills Road.
According to the SIU, a group of suspects fled the area in the stolen Rolls Royce and a BMW.
SIU spokesperson Kristy Denette said Toronto police, with the assistance of a York Regional Police helicopter, were able to track the suspects to the Gardiner.
She said police initiated a roadblock in the eastbound lanes of the highway near Parliament Street.
Denette said the driver of the BMW stopped the vehicle and fled on foot before falling 17 metres from the Gardiner to Lake Shore Boulevard below.
The man, who suffered serious, non-life-threatening injuries, was arrested and taken to hospital by paramedics.
The other suspects inside the Rolls Royce were not apprehended, police confirmed.
Video footage, which was recorded on Tuesday morning and obtained by CP24, shows the aftermath of the police pursuit on the busy highway. It appears to show multiple unmarked police cruisers surrounding a white SUV in an attempt to box the vehicle in.
The incident snarled the morning commute for drivers in the downtown core, shutting down a stretch of the Gardiner and the southbound Don Valley Parkway. All of the eastbound lanes of the Gardiner are now open at Jarvis Street and the southbound DVP also reopened at Richmond Street earlier this morning.
Denette said there is “no early indication” that the officers had any physical contact with the man during the interaction.
“The SIU really is looking at the circumstances that led to that (injury),” Denette said.
The SIU is called in to investigate any time police are involved in an incident that results in death, serious injuries, allegations of sexual assault, and/or the discharge of a firearm at a person.
“Did they (police) have the criminal authority to pursue this individual? What were those circumstances that led to that? Was there any sort of conversation or interaction prior the man going over the Gardiner,” Denette asked. “Was there a foot pursuit at that time or did they stop?”
The SIU has assigned three investigators and one forensic investigator to the case.
-With files from CP24’s Courtney Heels
