A 17-year-old who allegedly rammed a police vehicle with a stolen truck last night was already labelled as the highest level of repeat car thief, police said this morning.
The four juveniles --- aged 17, 16, 14 and 13 --- who were allegedly in the stolen truck were charged with being in violation of various probation and bail orders and conditions from previous offences, Const. Blair Good said.
Vehicles sit in a parking lot on Hutchins Street near Sheppard Street in the Inkster Industrial Park last night following a police chase involving a stolen truck. Four people were arrested after the stolen truck rammed a police vehicle in the parking lot.
A 14-year-old girl who was arrested last night has also previously faced car theft charges, Good said, and a 16-year-old male youth was also charged with assaulting a police officer last night with a screwdriver.
None of the officers involved was injured, Good said.
Police chased a stolen truck to a parking lot on Hutchins Street, where the truck hit a police vehicle about 8:30 p.m.
“They’re all juveniles --- a 14-year-old female, a 17-year-old male, a 16-year-old male, and a 13-year-old male,” Good said this morning.
“The 17-year-old male was allegedly the driver. He’s a level-4 offender, the highest level of offender. It’s based on the number of times they’ve been arrested on car thefts,” Good said.
Good could not immediately say how many times the 17-year-old has been previously arrested or convicted on car theft charges.
“The female has previously been arrested in regard to stolen vehicles,” Good said, although he added that the girl did not appear to have been labelled as an offender of any level.
All four face possession of stolen property charges --- the truck --- and failure to comply with conditions related to a range of previous offences.
The 16-year-old male was charged with assault with a weapon, assaulting a police officer, and possession of a weapon for dangerous purposes.
The 17-year-old male faces charges of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, and driving while disqualified.
The chase ended last night when the stolen vehicle rammed a police vehicle in an Inkster Industrial Park parking lot. The vehicle backed into the police vehicle after it blocked the escape exit in the parking lot on Hutchins Street near Sheppard Street.
A report from the scene said an unmarked police vehicle, a truck, blocked the path of another truck, where at least one wheel appeared to have been smashed off in a collision.
Police said the chase started in the area of Burrows Avenue and Church Avenue shortly after 8 p.m.
Officers in the Inkster Park area spotted a vehicle matching the description of a vehicle reported stolen in the Kildonan area of the city earlier in the evening and gave chase.
By 8:30 p.m. five cruisers had been called to the area, three of them idling on Sheppard, at the corners of Mountain Avenue, Church Avenue and Inkster Boulevard.
Further along Sheppard where it meets Hutchins Street, the stolen vehicle was still on the run, until it pulled into a parking lot.
It was followed by a police vehicle that partly blocked the exit to the lot.
That's when the police vehicle was rammed, police said.
"There was the stolen vehicle they were trying to stop," Winnipeg Police Inspector Chris Beattie said last night, outlining the scenario the officers played out.
"They pulled into the parking lot and the other vehicle backed into it," the inspector said.
The people in the stolen vehicle appear to have been trying to break through the truck barricade to escape. Instead the stolen vehicle was damaged in the collision and disabled.
They then jumped out and made a run for it, with police officers following.
Four suspects were later arrested.
This is the second time a police vehicle has been rammed in a chase over a stolen vehicle in two weeks.
alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca
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