It was on this day in 2010 OPP Constable Vu Pham was shot and killed after pulling over a pickup truck near Seaforth.
During what started as an attempt to pull over the driver of a truck, Pham and the driver then exchanged fire. One of the shots would fatally wound the 15-year police veteran. Pham was 37.
The suspect, Fred Preston, then became involved in a shootout with two other OPP officers and was critically wounded and died in hospital on March 11, 2010.
Faith Weber from Brussels was there and she tells CKNX that the officer and a man fired at each other across a road.
"The guy (was) laying in the ditch and the police officer on the other side of the road in the ditch but was standing up and they were both shooting back and forth at each other," she says. "When I was there, there was probably about five, six shots that already went off, and then we had to move back farther and then there was more shots going off."
Born in Saigon, Vietnam, Constable Pham joined the OPP in 1995. During his 15-year career he served in the communities of Parry Sound and Cochrane and, finally, in Huron County. Constable Pham was an active and dedicated community member and a family man who was survived by his wife and three children.
Coverage of the events by CKNX at the time can be found below:
[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Vu-Pham-Feature-Long.mp3"][/audio]
