Tara Pritchard says RCMP caused a near-fatal collision earlier this month when officers allegedly rammed a van carrying her 14-year-old son during a chase, sending a teen flying through the front window.

The RCMP are under investigation by Saskatoon Police and the Ministry of Justice for what happened on Highway 4 between Biggar, Sask., and North Battleford on Sept. 15.

Pritchard cannot understand why RCMP were chasing the van, which had not been reported stolen. She said officers rammed it from behind to end the pursuit.

"I want to know why they didn't handle it differently. They could have killed them," she said.

The special investigations unit of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations also wants to know what happened. Vice-chief Kimberly Jonathan said that, in the wake of the fatal shooting of Colten Boushie on Aug. 9, tensions are running high in rural Saskatchewan.

"It cannot be left to fester," Jonathan said in an interview.

"We've seen this in our First Nation communities time and time again. There's fear, there's distrust, there's so much concern."

The official story

Tara Pritchard (Facebook) RCMP are not offering any details about what happened that night beyond what they provided in a four-paragraph news release days later.

It said officers responded to a complaint in Unity shortly after midnight on Sept. 15. When they arrived, members observed a vehicle leaving the area. A short time later, it was involved in a single-vehicle collision and was located in a ditch, the release said.

"Two males youths were transported to hospital with serious – but non-life threatening – injuries," it said.

There is nothing from the RCMP that the van had been rammed, as Pritchard alleges.

A family's nightmare

Pritchard says the 16-year-old driving the van was airlifted by STARS to Saskatoon. He is still under care at Royal University Hospital with neck fractures and a broken leg and hip.

Her son Marlon was taken to hospital in North Battleford with fractured ribs and facial injuries.

She also thinks that he'll need help to deal with what happened.

"He's really quiet. He's not right, right now. He's going to need counselling for sure. He's not himself right now."

Piecing together the timeline

Pritchard said that she's still trying to piece together the timeline of what happened.

She said an off-duty RCMP officer apparently spotted her father's van parked at a house in Wilkie, and it raised flags.

The out-of-uniform Mountie contacted her father.

"The cops told my dad the van was stolen," she said.

Pritchard isn't clear about the sequence after that. She said an RCMP officer showed up at her house at 1:47 a.m. CST and said there had been an accident and that her son was involved. It wasn't until 5 a.m. that she learned he was alive, and in North Battleford.

Vice-chief Kimberly Jonathan (CBC) "That was the worst time of my life. Not knowing if my baby was dead or alive. The brothers and sisters couldn't sleep. They just left us, in total, nothing."

FSIN investigation

Vice-chief Jonathan is meeting with RCMP later this week to talk about the pursuit and collision. She said that she has specific questions.

"Whenever there's a high-speed chase from a member on the ground, as I understand it there's a supervisor at telecoms in Regina that makes the call to continue to pursue, or not to pursue," she said.

"There has to be accountability."