An early morning crash between an RCMP car and moose was fatal for an officer driving.

The crash happened just before 2:00 a.m. on Highway 14, about seven kilometres west of Wilkie, where the officer served as a member of the RCMP detachment.

Cst. Derek Pineo was found dead on the scene. At headquarters in Regina, the flags were at half mast to honour the memory of the 38-year-old officer.

For Sgt. Paul Dawson this was a different kind of conversation with reporters.

“It’s a sad day for Derek and our thoughts are with him,” he said.

Dawson says it was Pineo’s fellow officers that discovered him and his shattered cruiser. They had all had been on their way to service calls.

“There were several calls at that time, a couple of them were mischief complaints and a possible impaired driver,” Dawson said.

Cst. Pineo was married and a father of three with just under five years in the service. He had recently arrived at the Wilke detachments and was posted in Nipawin before that.

Pineo has family in Saskatchewan but his parents are in Nova Scotia.

As for an officer’s funeral, Dawson says at this time they are not sure what the plan is.

A total of 221 officers from the Mounted Police have died in the line of duty since the 1870s.

Edited by CJME's Adriana Christianson