{"id":166722,"date":"2026-04-15T17:49:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T17:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166722\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T17:49:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T17:49:20","slug":"driver-responsible-for-erie-canal-u-haul-crash-sentenced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166722\/","title":{"rendered":"Driver responsible for Erie Canal U-Haul crash sentenced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The driver responsible for a <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrumlocalnews.com\/nys\/rochester\/public-safety\/2025\/09\/03\/suspect-dies-in-erie-canal-after-leading-police-on-chase-in-u-haul-truck-through-monroe--orleans-counties\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">deadly U-Haul crash into the Erie Canal<\/a> following a high-speed chase in September 2025 was sentenced on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan Armstrong, 43, will serve between four and eight years in prison. He <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrumlocalnews.com\/nys\/rochester\/public-safety\/2026\/02\/12\/driver-pleads-guilty-to-deadly-u-haul-crash-into-erie-canal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pleaded guilty<\/a> to second-degree manslaughter earlier this year in Orleans County Court.<\/p>\n<p>Officials say Reginald L. Russell, 56, was riding with Armstrong in a U-Haul truck loaded with items stolen from a Brockport Walgreens last September.<\/p>\n<p>Armstrong then led Monroe County sheriff&#8217;s deputies on a chase into Orleans County after allegedly refusing to pull over when authorities tried to stop them.<\/p>\n<p>Police say the men eventually drove onto the Erie Canal path in the town of Murray and then circled a farm field before getting back on the canal path and intentionally driving the truck into the canal.<\/p>\n<p>Russell\u2019s body was eventually recovered after deputies say he attempted to swim to shore, but struggled and went under the water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The driver responsible for a deadly U-Haul crash into the Erie Canal following a high-speed chase in September&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[290,1611,136,138,137,139,294,11686,1592],"class_list":["post-166722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-app-public-safety","tag-buffalo","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-news","tag-public-safety","tag-rochester","tag-spectrum-news-staff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}