SEAFORTH, Ont. - A routine attempt to intercept a truck on a rural county road north of here Monday morning turned into a deadly shootout that claimed the life of a 37-year-old OPP constable.
Huron OPP Const. Vu Pham, a father of three school-age children, died in the London Health Sciences Centre, where he was airlifted after the shooting about 10:18 a.m.
“It’s just a very sad time for all of us,” said OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino, who flew to London after being notified of the shooting.
An unidentified, 70-year-old suspect was also wounded and is being treated in a London hospital.
Pham took the initiative after police were called to a “situation,” Fantino said at a news conference held before Pham’s death.
“There was nothing fancy about it, he was just doing his job,” said Fantino.
“It is things our people do over and over and over again in the line of duty.” When Pham tried to stop the vehicle, he was shot by the suspect and “immediately incapacitated.” Other officers in the area tried to help, but were too late, Fantino said.
“He was already wounded,” he said.
The shooting occurred a couple of kilometres south of the farming community of Walton.
Born in Saigon and a 15-year member of the OPP, Pham is survived by his wife Heather and children Tyler, 12, Jordan, 10, and Joshua, 7.
Pham also served with the OPP in Cochrane and West Parry Sound.
Eyewitness told Huron Expositor editor Susan Hundertmark, who was at the scene shortly after the shooting, that several shots were fired.
Bonnie Glanville, who lives on North Line, said she was getting a glass of water and looked out the window to see a truck being pulled over by the OPP and thought she was watching someone get a speeding ticket.
“I realized something wasn’t quite right when he quickly jumped out of the truck,” she said, adding she then heard shots and saw the officer being shot a couple of hundred feet from her house.
Neil McGavin, of Walton, was tapping trees in a nearby sugar bush when he heard shots.
“There was a lot of shooting. There must have been 20 shots. Then, I heard sirens,” he said.
Mary Cardinal, administrator of Seaforth Community Hospital, said a patient from the incident was brought in mid-morning, spent an hour being stabilized and was sent to a London hospital.
Citing an investigation launched by the province’s Special Investigations Unit, Fantino declined to provide details, including why police were called to the area.
OPP Sgt. Dave Rektor said police officers are in shock over the killing, a rarity for police in Southwestern Ontario “These types of incidents rattle the police community. “The police community is just devastated by this news,” he said.
Pham will be missed deeply by his colleagues, said Rektor.
“He was a good officer, well liked by his peers and he was a very respected officer,” he said.
Charges are pending against the suspect, but police are still investigating, he said.
Police cordoned off a wide area around the shooting, at first closing North Road a kilometre from the scene and then moving media and onlookers another two km back.
Huron East Mayor Joe Seili said the Canadian flag at his home and at the municipal office in Seaforth would be flying at half-mast.
Seili said the shooting and death of Pham “is a shock to the community, to the detachment and to all of us.” He’d heard little about the suspect but “hearsay and rumours,” he said.
Neighbour Ron Broadfoot was annoyed by suggestions from Toronto media that the shooting may have stemmed from a neighbours’ dispute.
“The neighbours here are great. It’s nothing to do with the neighbours,” he said.
Pham’s death brings to 104 the number of OPP officers killed in the line of duty in the force’s 100-year history
With files from QMI Agency’s Susan Hundertmark, Jennifer O’Brien and Deb Van Brenk,
