Toronto Police Sgt. Ryan Russell was a gifted police officer with an incredible work ethic, his fellow officers remembered after he was killed while trying to stop a stolen snowplow.

Russell was killed early Wednesday morning while attempting to stop a stolen snowplow on a residential street in Toronto. Reports suggest he had stepped in front of the plow in an attempt to stop it and was deliberately run down and crushed against his cruiser.

Retired officer Craig Peddle worked with Russell in the Toronto police force's Guns and Gangs Task Force, helping to mentor the officer and earn the experience he needed to be promoted. He remembers Russell as having a knack for the work from the get-go.

Peddle told The Globe and Mail's Christie Blatchford that Russell seemed to have "wisdom beyond his years," and a gift for policing that Peddle had never seen before in his 20 years on the force.

Peddle says Russell was just "born with it," knowing how to build a rapport with young gang members and how to extract information from them to build their cases.

Peddle also told the Toronto Star he was struck by Russell's intelligence and the way he invested himself into his work. He says Russell became intimately familiar with the neighbourhood he was surveying for a case, learning the names of every young person in the neighbourhood, every shopkeeper, and every alleyway and path through the neighbourhood.

CTV Toronto's Tamara Cherry says fellow officers told her Russell simply loved what he did.

"I'm told that he had an incredible work ethic and was a consummate professional," Cherry reported Wednesday.

"But this was only one side of the man. He was also remembered, as one officer put it, as ‘one hell of a hockey player,'" she said.

Other remember Russell as a dedicated family man, smitten with his two-year-old son and deeply in love with this wife, who happily packed his lunch for work every day.

"He had a great smile, he was a real sweetheart and he was the kind of guy everybody wanted to be around," Cherry reported.

Const. Bob Alvey, a high school friend, described Russell as a proud homeowner and handyman who, he joked, was terrible at poker.

"He was the happiest guy. He always had a smile on his face and positive words for everyone. He touched so many people," Alvey said of Russell, who grew up in Scarborough.

Russell joined the force 11 years ago and quickly established his reputation as a sharp investigator.

He was seconded to the Guns and Gangs unit for what was supposed to be six months, but turned into a four-year job. Last August, he was promoted to the rank of sergeant -- just as his father before him had been -- and moved to 52 Division.

"He was young, had a lot of ambition and wanted to prove to everyone how good he could be at his job," Sgt. Doug Minor, who partnered with Russell, said in a police news release.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair told reporters Wednesday Russell was "a fine police officer and a great servant to the people of Toronto," Blair said.

"He was out doing his job in the early morning hours in the city in a very dangerous situation. And he put his life on the line and tragically has lost his life doing his job."

Funeral arrangements are still pending.

With a report from CTV Toronto's Tamara Cherry