Craveiro was about to arrest the driver when the 20-year-old man suddenly detonated dynamite in his car, dying at the scene. Craveiro, who was the closest officer to the vehicle when it blew up, was seriously injured in the explosion. He lost his left eye, his ability to taste and smell diminished and he had chronic back pain, said his son Nico Craveiro. “He was in the hospital for quite some time.” Many years later, a shard of glass from the blast was removed from his head. Nonetheless, Craveiro, who died Tuesday of heart failure at age 74 at Victoria General Hospital, later returned to policing, a job he loved, retiring in 2004.
Saanich police officer Walter Craveiro was only three metres from a car that had gone into a ditch after a police chase when the car suddenly exploded. It was 1982, and the chase had begun in . . .