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A 34-year-old man is in custody after police say someone threw a metal object off the Whitemud overpass Wednesday, crashing through the windshield of a vehicle and seriously injuring a woman.
In a Friday news release, city police said they received a report of a large metal object thrown from the Whitemud overpass at 53 Avenue onto a moving vehicle. Police said the object smashed through the windshield of the car and struck a woman, who was sitting in the back seat next to her infant child.
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The woman was taken to hospital where she was treated for a serious, non-life-threatening injury.
On Thursday, police arrested Getnet Teklay, 34, and charged him with mischief endangering life, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.
Police investigating nine cases
Police said investigators are working to determine whether this latest case is connected to nine other instances where heavy items, including concrete slabs, have been thrown off Whitemud Drive overpasses, some of them striking vehicles below.
The first reported case happened Dec. 23. In eight of the cases, objects were tossed off the 53 Avenue and Whitemud Drive overpass, while one other incident occurred at 99 Street and Whitemud Drive.
On Feb. 23, city police released grainy surveillance footage that captured at least one man hurling items off the freeway overpass. Investigators believed the wanted man lives in the neighbouring area of 53 Avenue and Whitemud Drive.
Anyone with information about the most recent cases, or those who may have been affected or who may have dashcam footage, are asked to contact police at 780-423-4567. Anonymous tips can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.p3tips.com/250.
The events are similar to a fatal case back on June 1, 2002, when 75-year-old Robert Stanley was killed when a basketball-sized boulder crashed through the windshield of the charter bus he was driving. The rock had been dumped over the side of a Whitemud Drive pedestrian bridge as a prank by a group of teenagers. It would be years before police tracked them down and two were charged with manslaughter.
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