Two 16-year-old boys dead in Quebec after car speeds off during police interception: BEI

Two 16-year-old boys are dead after a car sped off during a police interception near Joliette Tuesday night, according to investigators.

At about 8:45 p.m., Sûreté du Québec (SQ) patrollers were trying to intercept a vehicle with a fake licence plate on Route 348 in the town of Saint-Ambroise-de-Kildar, about an hour northeast of Montreal.

"The officers drove by and noticed that one of the vehicles seemed to be equipped with a false licence plate. So at this point, they decided to do a U-turn to intercept the vehicle," explained Guy Lapointe, spokesperson for Quebec's independent bureau of investigations, known as the BEI.

Instead of stopping, Lapointe said the driver accelerated, hitting and killing a scooterist before losing control and ending up in a wooded area.

The passenger in the vehicle was also killed.

In addition to the two deaths, there were numerous injuries and people taken to hospital.

Quebec's independent bureau of investigations (BEI) has since taken over the file.

The BEI and Montreal police are investigating the incident.

"In this case, given the fact that it potentially could be criminal accusations against the civilian, what we do is we request a parallel investigation," said Lapointe. Montreal police will handle the investigation into the driver's actions, while the BEI will focus on the intervention made by the two SQ officers.

Montreal police and the BEI will work closely on the investigation, said Lapointe, adding that they will both likely speak to the officers involved, any witnesses and review the same evidence, including any potential video.

"At the end of this whole process, what we're going to do is we're going to submit the file to the prosecutor who's going to determine whether or not the police officers acted accordingly in the way they should have acted," he said.

- With files from CTV News Montreal's Luca Caruso-Moro