It’s not often someone in custody asks police to take him to prison

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This article was published 10/01/2023 (1315 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Selkirk RCMP arrested a hitchhiker wanted on warrants Monday who is now accused of swallowing methamphetamine in an attempt to smuggle the drugs into Stony Mountain federal prison.

Mounties on patrol on Selkirk’s Main Street at around 3:25 a.m. Monday were flagged down by a driver, who said he’d picked up a hitcher who was causing a disturbance and refusing to get out of his car.

Officers confirmed the man’s identity and discovered he was wanted on several warrants. He was arrested and taken to the local detachment, RCMP said.

“Once back in the cells at Selkirk, his behaviour was unusual,” said Manitoba RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Julie Courchaine.

“He was asking… ‘Can you drive me to Stony?’ and ‘Can you drive me there?’”

She said the officers monitoring him noted he had not used the washroom while in the cell.

“Once they realized there might be more going on, they took him to hospital,” Courchaine said.

The suspect then used the washroom and passed a balloon with 34 grams of meth stuffed inside, she said.

A 26-year-old Anola man is charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking and was remanded into custody.

She said RCMP investigators will liaise with corrections officials on the case.

Courchaine said ingesting illicit substances in an attempt to smuggle can be extremely dangerous.

“This ended up that he was fine, he wasn’t hurt or injured, but obviously if you’re ingesting this amount of drugs, it could be deadly,” Courchaine said.

Officers at the Selkirk detachment has encountered similar circumstances during a handful of arrests over the past year, she said, noting that in those cases, the accused didn’t attempt to flee or use fake names.

“I don’t want to say that people never co-operate with us… but sometimes when you’re dealing with someone with a parole violation or a warrant… they don’t want to go back to prison, so you’re seeing them eluding us or hiding,” she said.

“In these instances, recently, it’s been more of an, ‘OK, I’m turning myself in, take me back to jail’ scenario.”

Courchaine noted illicit substances are in high demand in correctional facilities and could not yet say whether the string of incidents are connected.

On May 30, a man in custody at the Selkirk detachment for a parole violation had a medical issue while waiting to be transferred to another correctional facility — he passed a balloon of meth at the detachment, but another was stuck in his body.

He was taken to hospital, where the second balloon was pulled from his body, before he was cleared by hospital workers and sent back to the detachment. The two balloons had more than 40 grams of meth stuffed inside.

A 21-year-old Winnipeg man was charged with possession of meth for the purpose of trafficking.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:@erik_pindera