Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Megan Turcato - Global Okanagan

Okanagan Chase

Okanagan RCMP used aircraft, spike belt to stop car, but it wasn’t the vehicle they were looking for

May 8, 2019 | 11:19 AM

VERNON, B.C. — After RCMP asked for help finding a vehicle connected to a Vernon complaint on Tuesday afternoon, police in the Central Okanagan used a spike belt and a tracking aircraft to stop a car.

It wasn’t the car connected to the Vernon case, but a Kelowna man could face charges after the vehicle allegedly fled from police.

“Although it wasn’t the vehicle police were initially on the look out for, when an attempt to stop the vehicle was made, the driver failed to stop for police,” Kelowna RCMP Cpl. Jesse O’Donaghey wrote in an emailed statement.

“The driver, prohibited from driving Canada wide, allegedly failed to stop for officers on more than one occasion, driving in a dangerous manner putting himself, his passenger and the motoring public at risk, prior to a spike belt being deployed.”

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RCMP allege the Honda Prelude failed to halt for police, when officers, believing it was the vehicle connected to the Vernon case, tried to stop the car.

Instead, police said the car “fled into the Carrs Landing area, being driven at high rates of speed and in a dangerous manner.”

So, according to police, officers tracked the car from above using an RCMP aircraft and laid out a spike belt on Barkley Road to stop the vehicle.

RCMP said after the spike belt “effectively disabled the vehicle . . . the driver and an unidentified passenger eventually ditched the vehicle and fled on foot.”

Police arrested one person believed to be the driver of the car.

RCMP said a 31-year-old Kelowna man remains in police custody.