{"id":167242,"date":"2026-04-16T05:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T05:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/167242\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T05:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T05:18:13","slug":"man-sentenced-after-deadly-u-haul-crash-into-erie-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/167242\/","title":{"rendered":"Man sentenced after deadly U-Haul crash into Erie Canal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Rochester man is heading to state prison after a stolen U\u2011Haul, a high\u2011speed chase, and a deadly plunge into the Erie Canal.<\/p>\n<p>ROCHESTER, N.Y. \u2014 A Rochester man will spend nearly five decades in prison for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wgrz.com\/article\/news\/crime\/police-chase-ends-in-erie-canal-plunge-drowning-death\/71-eab57c93-ccd6-42f4-b303-ff336dae3b41\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">deadly U-Haul crash<\/a> that ended in the Erie Canal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A judge sentenced Ryan Armstrong to up to eight years in prison after he pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter back in February.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors said Armstrong \u2014 on Sept. 2, 2025 \u2014 led police on a chase after he and Reginald Russell stole from a Walgreens, then accidentally drove the rented truck into the Erie Canal, near the border of Monroe and Orleans counties.<\/p>\n<p>Armstrong managed to get out of the truck. Russell drowned.<\/p>\n<p>The Monroe County Sheriff&#8217;s Office said Armstrong drove recklessly at speeds exceeding 85 mph before veering onto a canal service road and plunging the truck into the water in an attempt to evade police. Armstrong escaped and swam across the canal. Russell drowned.<\/p>\n<p>Armstrong has had multiple prior law enforcement contacts in Monroe County dating back to May 2000, the Orleans County Sheriff\u2019s Office said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Rochester man is heading to state prison after a stolen U\u2011Haul, a high\u2011speed chase, and a deadly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-167242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167242","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=167242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}