Stolen milk truck leads police on chase through neighbourhoods

A 32-year-old man was arrested after allegedly leading police on a destructive chase through several central Ottawa neighbourhoods in a stolen Sealtest milk truck Friday morning —  with the deliveryman in the back.

Police said the Sealtest employee was shaken but not seriously injured as the milk truck crashed into many vehicles, beginning at about 9:40 a.m. near Lisgar Road and Mariposa Avenue in New Edinburgh.

Greg Boone saw the milk truck emerge from St. Andrew Street and travel north in the southbound lanes of King Edward Avenue, zigzagging around other vehicles, driving on the sidewalk and leaving a path of destruction behind it.

"It was very much like a movie. Very much like a video game," he said.

"There was a parking lot for tenants in an apartment building and all the cars had been side-swiped. It looked [like] he tried to cut through a parking lot.… He knocked down a couple of street signs with bicycles attached to it. There was a crushed bicycle."

The milk truck swiped Donald Lucas's truck, detaching the outdoor passenger mirror and spraying the side with cream.

"It was pretty wild," he said. "I thought he was going to kill people. It was dangerous."

Two police cruisers were damaged while boxing in the milk truck near Cathcart and Cumberland streets in Lowertown, police said.

No officers were injured.

The man is facing numerous charges including robbery, theft, failing to stop for police and failing to remain at the scene of a crash.