At 3am, cantonal police in Valais began pursuing a light blue Ford Mustang with Russian plates clocked speeding on the motorway at 200 kilometres per hour, newspaper 20 Minuten reports.
After Valais police lost track of the vehicle, a canton Vaud gendarmerie unit in Villeneuve tried to pull the driver over.
But the 45-year-old Swiss man sped through a checkpoint in the town and raced on towards Montreux.
Anticipating the man’s arrival, police set up a road block in the middle of the western city.
When the Mustang came to a halt, a police car containing three officers drove up from behind.
The three gendarmes then opened fire as the driver stepped out of the car wielding a 12-caliber hunting rifle.
The driver died in the shooting, while one of the officers was accidentally shot in the shoulder by a colleague. The police officers fired a total of nine shots. The victim did not fire his weapon, police said.
A resident of Valais, the driver was not previously known to the police. Besides the rifle, he also had 25,000 francs ($27,000) in cash with him in the car. He did not own a gun licence.
An investigation is underway into the exact circumstances of the shooting.
Member comments